Wishful Thinking
by BlackShuck
Summary: Set at Christmastime during Harry’s seventh year. HPSB SLASH Harry can’t wait to see his Godfather again, even though his private feelings towards him are just a little hard to handle...
1. Chapter 1

**Summary:** **_HP/SB SLASH._** Set at Christmastime during Harry's seventh year. Harry can't wait to see his Godfather again, even though his private feelings towards him are just a little hard to handle…

**AN1:** If we go with proper canon chronology, Pirates of the Caribbean wouldn't have been released in the cinema in the summer after the trio's sixth year, but please try to suspend your disbelief… But as I'm ignoring the evil event at the end of OotP too it shouldn't be too hard. Hmm, perhaps I should just label this fic AU?

**AN2: **I'm slowly writing more on this one, and it will get done eventually. I really lost momentum with it when my old account was deleted, and when my computer hard drive crashed at around the same time I actually thought I had lost the story completely for a while. Luckily it has been saved.****

**Rating:** I'm keeping the R rating, and this fic was originally written to be very hot and R rated but as I don't seem to be able to write R stuff without it being too racy and thereby getting my account deleted… here is a much cleaner version than I ever intended, it may not ever even end up being worthy of the R, but we shall see.

"Harry?" The voice calling his name sounded irritated and as if it was coming from a long way away.

"Mmm. Just a few more minutes," he mumbled, snuggling his quilt back under his chin.

The quilt was tugged at none too gently. "No."

Harry held on tight. "Hermiiioone," he whined.

"Harry, let go of my cloak and stop drooling on your potions essay! People are looking."

Harry slowly sat up, having to peel his face away from a rather damp sheet of parchment as he did so. He blinked and pushed his rather smudged glasses back up his nose to see a table-load of tiny Hufflepuffs staring wide-eyed at him from across the library. He turned to his left and blinked sleepily at Hermione; she was glaring at him, and he realized he was clutching her right sleeve and had in fact had it tucked under his chin until a moment ago. Hoping he hadn't drooled on her sleeve, he quickly released it.

"Sorry," he told her with his most charming smile. He smiled easily at the Hufflepuff first years and called out softly, "Just NEWT stress kids. You'll understand in a few years."

A few squeaked and flushed at the acknowledgement before returning to their own studies.

He turned back to Hermione and grinned again. "Just tell me I didn't snore."

Her lips twitched slightly. "Only very softly. However, I think you may have a major re-write on your hands for your 'deadly but untraceable potions' essay," she replied.

Harry frowned. "But you said it was good. I thought it was good; Snape might not even find an excuse to fail me."

Hermione stood up and began methodically stacking papers into her oversized book bag. "It was good, but most of the ink from paragraph four relocated to your cheek when you made a strange wailing noise, drooled on the parchment and then rubbed your face on it." With that she hoisted the bag on to her shoulder and trotted out of the library, her shoulders shaking suspiciously.

Harry looked down at his essay and swore softly; Hermione was only too right. Paragraph four was now just a damp inky smudge, most of the words rendered almost indecipherable. Resignedly he flicked through his notes, trying to figure out how to recreate the lost work. If only he wasn't so tired he wouldn't be taking impromptu naps in the library. NEWTs were supposed to be "nastily exhausting" granted, but perhaps if he were able to sleep at night he might have a hope in hell of staying awake during the day.

But at night he was plagued by dreams. Voldemort still occasionally poked a hole in his defenses and visited him with a nighttime horror or two, but Harry was becoming increasingly successful at distancing himself from the things he sometimes saw. It was still awful, but not unmanageable. No, it was a different sort of dream that woke Harry in the night, a different sort of dream, which left him sweating and shivering. Not a bad dream as such, but not a dream that could really be termed 'good' either.

Oh, they were enjoyable though, Harry mused with a small smile tugging at his lips. They just weren't the sorts of dreams he _should_be having.

If he were dreaming about some pretty blond Hufflepuff that would be fine, if it were Ginny Weasley it would be wonderful. Ron would love it. Well, maybe not the sexy dream part, but the idea that Harry was interested in his sister would go down great. Even dreaming that way about Hermione would be better, even though she was his best friend and dating his other best friend. Okay, bad example. Ron would kill him. Hell, possibly dreaming that way about Draco Malfoy would be better.

But no, if he had to have raunchy, sweaty, hot dreams about someone, they just had to be about his godfather.

The fates really did like a damn good laugh at his expense.

Being gay didn't trouble him overmuch once he had realised it was accepted much more readily in the wizarding world. He had admitted to Ron and Hermione during the summer after sixth year that he thought he might be gay, and they had happily supported him. Secretly, he even suspected Ron had a ridiculous complex about losing Hermione to him, and so was almost gleeful about the news.

But then after receiving total support and encouragement from Ron and Hermione, and then from Ginny and Neville too, he just had to go and pick someone impossible to fall for.

He hadn't meant to; he'd just finished firmly telling his friends that he didn't have a crush on any particular guy they knew, that it was just a general non-attraction to women that had set him wondering. Then, he had found himself admitting he was more interested in one of the handsome male leads of a film they had watched together than in the beautiful heroine, when suddenly his godfather had been chased through the kitchen wearing nothing more than a pair of worn jeans, laughingly shouting abuse over his shoulder at an irate Remus, who apparently had just been outrageously pranked.

As his godfather had raced past and away to safety up the stairs, Harry had been forced to admit to himself that his godfather was still a very attractive man. Thereafter it was an image he had found it difficult to dislodge. The more he tried not to think about it, the more the thought persisted in wedging itself in his thoughts. Half-naked Sirius seemed to invade his mind at very inopportune moments, including in the showers after quidditch practice. Luckily nobody else had seemed to notice the inevitable result of those thoughts.

Harry groaned again and raked his fingers anxiously through his hair, making it stand up in wild tufts that gave him the appearance of having horns. Oblivious to his audience he began absentmindedly shredding the corner of his potions essay.

How wrong could his feelings be anyway? What exactly was wrong with having your own godfather, a man slightly more than twice your age and your deceased father's best friend at that, as the star of your X-rated fantasies? Well, it sounded very wrong when he put it that way. Harry banged his head on the table, causing a small landslide of potions books, and moaned softly, unwittingly making the already nervous Hufflepuffs terrified that he was having a breakdown.

It was all Sirius' fault for being so attractive and amusing and kind and intelligent and assorted other good things. A man his age shouldn't be allowed to run about half-naked and look that good doing it. He had no right to be a wonderful person that made you look beyond the excessively attractive exterior and fall head over heels in love with him.

Of all the stupid things Harry had done in his life, he was pretty sure this was the stupidest. Even if his godfather was interested in men - and he probably wasn't - he was still Sirius' seventeen-year-old godson and as such was probably off limits even if Sirius did by some miracle find him attractive.

There were only four days to go before he and his friends would be going home for the Christmas holiday, and then he would see Sirius again. Harry wasn't entirely sure if he was dreading it or looking forward to it.

He slowly forced himself to sit upright, and picked up his quill again. He needed to forget how good Sirius made worn denim look and get on with writing an essay so good that even the greasy git would be forced to give him a good grade. With the image of Snape furiously gnashing his teeth at having to give him decent marks held firmly in mind, Harry began to write with newfound concentration. He absolutely would not think about Sirius any more. Not for a while anyway. At least, he would try not to.

Remus Lupin staggered through the front door of 12 Grimmauld Place laden with armloads of shopping, which he was balancing precariously. Moments later he found himself leapt upon by his overeager best friend and they both crashed to the floor with a heavy thud in a shower of parcels.

Remus extricated himself with difficulty and stood up offering a hand to a slightly sheepish looking Sirius. "What on earth was that about?" Remus asked gently. He was pretty sure he knew what it was all about. The only time Sirius ever got this excited these days was when it came to Harry.

Sirius scrambled upright looking slightly embarrassed. "Sorry, Moony… got a bit carried away. But it's Christmas!" He did a small impromptu war dance of sorts around an amused Remus before dropping to his knees again, where he began sifting through the packages, looking worried. "Did you get them all?" He demanded frantically.

Remus chuckled. He had been sent out and ordered not to return on pain of death until every item on Sirius' shopping list had been fulfilled. It had been a very large list. "Well, Padfoot. I'm sorry to have to disappoint you at this time of the year, but there were a couple of things I couldn't manage to get."

Sirius froze with a horrified look on his face as he clutched an especially large parcel to his chest. The parcel made a strange wheezing sound, but Sirius didn't seem to notice.

Remus took a step back and fished around in his pocket for the list that had been pressed into his hand so many hours earlier. Sirius was making this too easy. "Mind that parcel, Padfoot," he added as he scanned the list.

Sirius didn't reply. He just stared at Remus, waiting to be told which of his gifts hadn't been found.

Remus obliged by reeling off a short list, all of which he knew Sirius had particularly wanted for Harry, all of which Tonks would soon crash through the door with. After all, there was only so much Remus could carry.

Sirius shrugged, trying to look resigned as the first few items were reeled off, but soon looked increasingly miserable and was hugging the parcel far too tightly. With a short but earsplitting series of cracks and pops the mishandled package of glitter snowpuffs exploded spectacularly in Sirius' arms. Within a heartbeat the whole hallway was thickly crusted with a blanket of white glitter. The hall was a winter wonderland, Mrs. Black began screeching under her blanket, and Sirius resembled a snowman. Remus merely looked as if he'd been caught in a heavy fall of snow and promptly doubled over laughing at his friend. He could barely see Sirius' face, but he knew there was one hell of a glare going on under there.

There was the sound of running feet and Molly Weasley dashed in. "Oh Great Merlin you two! I thought we agreed the snowpuffs were a bit too volatile and would be best just used in small doses for the tree! Did you _have_ to use them so violently in the hall? Honestly, I feel as if I have a dozen children sometimes, not seven."

"It was an accident," grumbled Sirius, still busy glaring at a chuckling Remus.

"Wow, nice bit of decorating going on in here!" Tonks declared as she shouldered her way through the front door and surveyed the frosty looking hall. She shifted her armload of parcels and squinted. "That you under there, Siri? Or did they really put a snowman in the hall?"

Sirius turned, his glittery white casing crackling as he did so, and glared at Tonks too. "It's me," he complained, then as he began brushing the glitter from his face he spotted one long, thin and unmistakably broom-shaped parcel tucked under her arm and spun to look at Remus.

"We got them all." Remus told him reassuringly and then cringed as Tonks was on the receiving end of Sirius' ebullience and they both crashed gracelessly to the floor. Sirius transformed into his canine form and joyfully began digging up glitter-crusted parcels, while Remus and Molly helped Tonks to her feet.

"He's got Christmas fever again, bless him," murmured Molly fondly as she left the room. "Now, I must go and check on the mince pies."

Remus and Tonks looked at each other and turned to follow; Sirius in this sort of mood was probably best left alone. As Remus walked towards the kitchen and the enticing aroma of Molly's pies he couldn't help but wonder if it wasn't Harry fever that was making Sirius act strangely.

 Ron Weasley lay snug in bed, comfortable in the knowledge that he had no classes until after the New Year. It was terrific to know that before the end of the day he would be surrounded by his family, friends, and lots of delicious food. He could enjoy his first Christmas as Hermione's boyfriend without it even crossing his mind that she would someday leave him for his richer, better looking, and famous best friend. He had even managed to get her a few small gifts he felt almost convinced she would appreciate; Ginny had sworn they would go down well anyway.

He sat up slightly and squinted in the dim light, trying to read the clock. He managed to make out the position of the hands and was happy to find there was some time yet to lie-in before Hermione marched in and began organising them. He sighed contentedly; at times like these he could almost forget there was a bloody awful war going on, which of course was the exact moment Harry began thrashing wildly in his sleep, moaning loudly.

Ron hastily rolled out of bed, but stood on something extremely sharp and bellowed loudly. He hopped frantically on his uninjured foot before losing his balance and crashing to the floor. Harry immediately stopped thrashing and Neville stopped snoring. Ron groaned as Harry leaned over the side of his bed and stuck out a tentative hand to pat Ron's shoulder. "Ron?" He questioned, not sounding at all as if he'd just been possessed by an evil wizard.

Ron moaned, "Harry, I think something bit me."

Harry and Neville immediately rushed to his side followed by Seamus and Dean.

"Are you alright, mate?" Harry asked as Neville lit up his wand and looked around nervously for whatever might have bitten Ron.

"I don't know," quavered Ron, his fingers still wrapped tightly around his foot, "It might've been a spider, a nasty one with big poison fangs! I could be dying, Harry!"

Dean snorted and held up the offending object. "Try your prefect badge, Ron."

Ron felt the blood rush to his cheeks and was grateful for the dimness of the room. "Oops," he offered mildly.

Harry grinned and offered a hand to help him up. "At least it wasn't a spider, though I don't think I'd really want a pin that size in my foot as a wake up call, either."

Ron snorted and let himself be dragged to his feet. "Actually mate, you were my wake up call. I was dozing in peace when you started thrashing about and groaning like anything, so thinking that You-Know-Who had got in your head again I leapt out of bed to snap you out of it and stood on the sodding pin." He scrutinized Harry carefully, his eyes flicking up briefly to a perfectly normal looking scar. "So, what was that about?" He added casually as he sat back on his bed.

Harry turned away, flushing under Ron's honest blue gaze, "Uh, well just your average not good dream. It doesn't always have to be Voldemort, you know."

Ron grimaced at the name but didn't flinch. "Oh right, sorry to hear that. Well I woke you up anyway, so that's good Let's get some more sleep, shall we?"

Harry nodded, "Yeah, before Hermione bustles in earlier than any normal human and begins directing the day's events with military precision."

Ron snorted and stuffed his head under his pillow. "See you in a bit mate," he mumbled.

Harry slumped back into bed and groaned, but softly so it wouldn't carry to Ron's ears. He hadn't really lied to Ron; it had been a not good dream, but only in the sense that 'good' didn't describe the dream with any justice. It had been the most incredible dream, and almost the most incredibly embarrassing experience. Thankfully, Ron had been oblivious.

Harry sighed. He loved Ron, he really did, and it was decent of him to come charging to the rescue when he thought Harry was stuck in nightmare land again, but any dream where Sirius was swaggering about dressed as a pirate was one he emphatically did not want to be woken up from. He had dreamed of himself and Sirius being forced to walk the plank by Wormtail and getting marooned on a desert island. They had been drinking fire whiskey and enthusiastically dancing round a fire singing Christmas carols when Sirius the Pirate had begun making advances. Harry had only been too happy to accept those advances and they had been at the very pleasurable stage of rolling about in the sand half-naked, kissing and groping when Ron had yowled like a demented banshee and Harry had been jolted awake.

He shook his head. Now he came to think about it, there was a similar scene in the film that had first started him seriously questioning his sexuality, and if he thought about it the piratical male lead did look just a bit Sirius-like. Harry moaned and pulled his quilt over his head; he was in way too deep. Now he'd have to go and act like a dutiful godson later on, all the while thinking about how delicious Sirius would look dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow. He sleepily wondered if it was possible to use a variant of the 'scourgify' charm on the horny part of his brain, before drifting back off to sleep and into the arms of the naughty and insatiable Pirate Sirius.

It seemed like only minutes to Ron before his roommates were up and about and his girlfriend was perched on the edge of the bed smiling at him. "Morning, Ron!" She chirped, leaning down to press a gentle kiss to his lips. "I thought you and Harry would be up by now, but you were snoring and Harry's clutching his pillow in a death grip, mumbling something about pirates."

Ron blinked at her and slowly sat up. "Pirates?"

"Apparently so," Hermione said happily, "Maybe he's been reading the book I leant him, there's a whole chapter devoted to the importance of piracy in the development of the current system of wizarding currency."

Ron simply stared. "It's too early to learn things, Hermione," he whined after a moment's thought. "Just give me another kiss and I'll get up."

Hermione smiled and gave him another quick kiss, which Ron unsuccessfully tried to prolong. "Now up!"

Ron grumbled but swung his legs out of bed, ensuring that this time he didn't plant his feet on anything other than the rug. As he lurched across the room to prod Harry awake his sister poked her head round the door. "Morning, Ronnie!" She said cheerily, "Neville, Dean, Seamus and Me are all just going down to breakfast. See you down there, alright?"

Ron nodded and looked down at Harry, who indeed had his pillow in a death grip; in fact, a few feathers seemed to be escaping from one end. "Oi, Harry!" Ron said loudly, giving him a gentle nudge in the ribs.

Harry just snuffled and cuddled the pillow tighter.

"Do you think we should've got him a teddy to cuddle for Christmas, or maybe a puppy?" He queried, as Hermione bustled past with an armload of his books.

"Mmm, puppy. Ooh Sirius," Harry mumbled.

Ron rolled his eyes, "Yeah, Sirius, who we will see later today if you ever drag your bum out of bed." He prodded Harry again. "Wake up you lazy git."

"Sirius?" Harry growled, rolling on top of the pillow as he did so, which then spewed out a few more feathers.

Hermione came and stood beside her boyfriend with a strange look on her face.

"Honestly, he just gets weirder," mumbled Ron before clearing his throat and bellowing, "Wake up!"

Harry jerked upright. "Man overboard!" He yelled, looking around wildly.

Ron collapsed into giggles and Harry turned pink.

"Pirates, huh?" Ron snorted. "I'm off to have a shower."

Harry smiled warily at Hermione. "Um… well… it was nice to have a sort of non-violent dream for once."

Hermione eyed him with the kind of scrutiny she usually reserved for interrogations about progress on homework.

"What?" Harry asked as innocently as possible.

"Sirius was in your pirate dream?" She queried, with a strange flickering in her eyes.

Harry knew that look only too well, it meant that Hermione's impressive brain was suffering from overwork again – and he was the subject.

"Um, so I'll just get up and pack and stuff then," he mumbled, absently ruffling his hair and stopping quickly when he followed Hermione's calculating line of vision. He tended to ruffle his hair when he was nervous or lying and she knew it.

"Harry," she murmured, sounding a little uncertain, "Don't be offended if I'm off target, but do you… have feelings for Sirius?"

Harry gulped and forced himself to sound bright and breezy. "Well of course I do! He is my godfather, you know."

Hermione's eyes narrowed. Harry froze like a small fat bunny on the track before the oncoming Hogwarts express. Oops, he thought, that was probably the wrong answer, as sarcasm and Hermione didn't really mix all that well.

"All right then, it seems that I was mistaken," Hermione said with a sniff, before turning back to Ron's trunk that she had been methodically re-arranging and adding books to.

"Great job, genius," Harry congratulated himself under his breath as he began laying out clothes to wear. In a strange fit of organisation he had neatly packed his own trunk the previous evening, leaving him with nothing to do besides shower, dress and eat. He stared at Hermione's stiff back and squirmed. What could it hurt to tell her a little about his feelings? She wasn't the sort to blab, even by mistake, and it might iron things out in his own head. "Hermione?"

She glanced briefly over her shoulder. "Yes?"

Okay, so she was still pissed off. "I… uh, you were kind of on target actually."

"Really?" Her face lit up and for a moment Harry felt hopeful that his feelings weren't as silly as he thought. Then he remembered how much Hermione liked to be right and the hope ebbed away.

"I'm being insane, aren't I?" He burst out. "Hell, I'm being pretty disgusting really, lusting after him. He'd hate me if he knew."

Hermione shook her head. "Sirius wouldn't ever hate you. Remember the time at the ministry?"

Harry shuddered. "How could I forget? Those were probably the worst few hours of my life when I thought he wouldn't make it."

"Exactly. He came so close to dying for you and he didn't even seem to care as long as you were okay, he cares that much about you. Think about it logically Harry. We don't choose who we fall for, so he wouldn't blame you for your feelings even if he wasn't at all interested in pursuing a relationship of that nature with you."

"The chances of which are about as likely as Voldemort being elected as the next Minister of Magic," Harry said sourly. "Oh wait, I forgot, being murderous and stupid doesn't preclude you from election."

Hermione rolled her eyes.

"Okay, sorry, it's just that I can't imagine that Sirius will ever look at me that way."

Hermione sat down and folded her arms before she fixed Harry with a meaningful stare. "Why not?"

Harry stared at her and windmilled his arms furiously in an attempt to convey just how deranged she was being. Hermione merely raised an eyebrow and waited for Harry to crack.

"Siri seems to have his knickers in a knot today," Tonks commented as Remus entered the kitchen in search of a late breakfast.

"He is looking forward to seeing Harry and seems to have got as worked up as ever," Remus agreed, helping himself to tea and toast. "In truth I fancy it may be best to avoid him in the immediate future."

"You're telling me," Tonks agreed fervently, sloshing juice from her mug as she moved to sit next to Remus at the kitchen table. "Have you seen his latest barmy enterprise?"

Remus took a large gulp of tea and eyed Tonks warily as her elbow knocked a plate precariously near the edge of the table. He rescued the plate without a word and sighed deeply, "I don't want to know, do I?"

"Probably not," Tonks said cheerfully through a mouthful of toast, "He's only gone and got Fred and George to deliver masses of those snowpuff thingys and has dumped them all over the tree and around the rest of the lounge. I went in and half expected to see some flipping penguins, but there's only a daffy dog. Looks pretty actually - I was quite impressed."

"I suppose he's buried all the presents too, instead of gift wrapping them like a normal person?"

Tonks shrugged. "Dunno, maybe."

"Wonderful, we'll all have to spend the next month scrubbing glitter from our persons if that is the case. I think I may go and have a word with him."

Tonks looked stricken and clutched his sleeve as he stood up. "Don't make him clean it up will you? It does look bloody good and I bet Harry and the others will enjoy it."

Remus smiled wearily and took a last bite of toast. "I wouldn't dare; besides, I very much doubt it would come off within the next couple of hours. Those snowpuffs are the very devil. In fact, I think I may still be twinkling very slightly from his last experiences with them."

Remus cautiously opened the door to the lounge and shook his head as crisp snowy glitter trickled out of the doorway and pooled sparkling around his worn shoes. "Padfoot, what exactly happened in here?"

Sirius appeared from behind the enormous Christmas tree practically vibrating with excitement. "I decorated, Moony my old chum! What do you think?"

Remus looked around and shook his head again. When his friend got an idea in his head he certainly went all out. The whole room sparkled and glistened from floor to ceiling. It looked like a fairyland.

"It certainly is different."

Sirius' face fell. "You don't like it?"

"I didn't say that," Remus began, but Sirius had swept on regardless.

"I overdid it didn't I?" He mumbled fretfully, scuffing at the sparkling fake snow beneath his feet, "I just wanted to give Harry a Christmas he wouldn't ever forget. It isn't like he ever had a good Christmas as a kid, with those rotten muggles, and the last few years have been miserable or hectic or we haven't been together…"

Remus shook his head sadly as his friend rambled on. Sirius was so transparent when you got to know him, and Remus had soon learned to see through him. "He'll love it," he told Sirius before his friend attempted anything drastic.

The look of pleasure that flashed across his face was pathetically hopeful before it was replaced with a genuine but restrained smile. "I hope so."

"He will. Harry will love anything that you do for him," Remus offered, carefully watching his friend's expression. Was it his imagination, or did Sirius look shifty all of a sudden? The slight blush decided him. This had been going on long enough and he needed to lay a few things to rest. It might have been better to get them out of the way before Harry himself was almost due to show up, but better late than never.

He watched as Sirius suddenly bounced across the room and carefully began coaxing more crystalline icicles into forming on the mantelpiece, which seemed to be the only bit of the room not currently completely glitter coated.

"Padfoot, you know I wouldn't judge you on it, but is there something between you and Harry?"

The icicle Sirius was working on shuddered and exploded and Sirius stared stupidly at the remains of it. "What do you mean?" He mumbled eventually as he got up with a very dangerous look in his eyes. It was the sort of look that told Remus he would be spending Christmas as a very large pink slug if he didn't watch what he was saying.

"You seem very excited to be seeing him again. I'll be glad to see him too, but I'm not in this much of a state, and some instinct tells me that there is just something more than meets the eye here."

Sirius scowled and fingered the wand he held. "What exactly are you trying to say?" He asked, trying and failing to sound angry. Instead he just sounded sad and resigned.

Remus took a deep breath. He was either about to make a breakthrough with Sirius or experience a sudden craving for lettuce. "That I don't think your feelings towards him are entirely platonic."

Sirius' shoulders slumped dejectedly and he slowly sat down where an armchair should have been. Unfortunately he had shrunk it earlier that day and plopped down heavily in the glittering snow instead. "I didn't mean to fall for him," he mumbled crossly.

Remus squatted down beside him. "I'm not blaming you Padfoot, although I can't precisely claim that I approve. But Harry is seventeen years old and as such is legally an adult, so if he were to develop an interest in you then that would be between you and him. Prongs and Lily only wanted you to look after him, and I don't think falling in love with him instead of just loving him in any way breaks your promise to them."

Sirius blinked as if this was something he hadn't considered. "But I'm so much bloody older than he is."

"Age is just a number Padfoot. You're only as old as the man you feel."

Sirius opened his mouth to argue, but Remus hurried on before Sirius started roaring indignantly. "Besides, although I'm sure you don't want to think about it, you did essentially lose over a decade in Azkaban. Emotionally you aren't really so very many years older than Harry, and with everything he has handled in his life I'd say he is very mature for his years."

Sirius opened and closed his mouth a few times but nothing came out.

Remus patted him kindly on the shoulder, trying not to enjoy the sight of a dumbstruck Padfoot too much. "Try not to worry. Harry loves you, no matter what."

Sirius snorted and finally persuaded his vocal chords to function. "Sure, his godfather perving after him will give him lots of happy, loving thoughts."

"Honestly!" Remus exclaimed irritably. He had almost forgotten how Sirius could be simply impossible at times.

Sirius just scowled.


	2. Chapter 2

"If you whack me round the head with your tail one more time I'll bloody well hex it to fall off, sprout fairy wings and fly away!" Tonks grumbled as Padfoot scrambled over her and Remus for the hundredth time, trying to see if Molly and Arthur had yet returned with the five Hogwarts students they had gone to meet.

"Yes, do sit down and get your great clumsy paw out of my groin," Remus agreed with a slight wince.

Padfoot ignored them both, the wild wagging of his tail becoming even more pronounced.

Tonks fumbled for her wand and cupped a protective hand over the royal blue spikes of her current hairstyle.

Remus quickly opened the door before Tonks lost her temper and Padfoot lost his tail, and the three of them tumbled out to meet Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny and Neville who were trundling their luggage towards them, flanked by Molly and Arthur.

"Wotcher, mates!" Tonks bellowed enthusiastically, vigorously shaking hands with Ron and Neville as Remus politely greeted Ginny and Hermione. Meanwhile, Harry was sprawled on the ground snorting with laughter as an enormous black dog loomed over him slobbering gleefully, his whole hindquarters waggling joyfully as his tail whipped back and forth.

"Gah! Dog spit!" Harry chuckled, trying to push his overeager godfather away slightly. "It's great to see you too, Snuffles, but can we do the reunion bit later?"

"Snuffles!" Molly scolded.

Harry laughed even more as Sirius shrank back and put his paws over his eyes, his tail still waving furiously. As Molly marched over to tell Sirius off, Harry took his chance to stand up and dust himself off. "It's alright Mrs Weasley," he said quickly, "Let's get to Grimmauld Place so he can be himself. He might drool over me a bit less then."

Remus grinned as he heard that, particularly as Sirius had admitted only that morning that he had done very little but drool over Harry for the last six months or so.

Everyone immediately moved to begin stowing their luggage in the boots of the two cars as Mad Eye Moody stumped back and forth between the cars, alarming passing muggles with his mutterings about the need for constant vigilance.

Ron and Harry grinned at each other as they watched a terrified Neville and an unconcerned Ginny settling into the other car with her parents and the paranoid Moody.

"He'll have them circling Piccadilly for two hours, probably with detours past Buckingham Palace and The Tower," Harry said confidently.

"Good, that means we get first dibs on food and everything," Ron replied comfortably, "Still, it's kind of nice how some things never change, isn't it?"

Harry eyed Sirius who had draped himself heavily across his feet the minute he had got in the car and felt Hermione's gaze burning into him; some things certainly, _did_ change though, and once Sirius stopped prancing about in dog form, his hormones were going to be troublesome to say the least.

But maybe, just maybe, Hermione wasn't completely wrong in her advice to him and if he were blessed with an incredible amount of good fortune it wouldn't matter how troublesome his hormones got.

The moment they were all over the threshold of his much hated home, Sirius transformed back into his human form and threw a casual arm around his godson's shoulders. "Good to have you here, Harry," he said happily, even as it crossed his mind that Harry's shoulders really had bulked up recently and that he could faintly feel the warmth of his body beneath his fingers even through the jumper he wore. Then he kicked himself mentally for the direction his thoughts had taken and would have pulled away, but Harry had enthusiastically burrowed into him with a mumble of, "Good to be here."

Sirius caught a glimpse of Moony smirking at him over the top of Harry's head and scowled at him as he tried not to concentrate on Harry's strong arms clamping around his own shoulders.

He valiantly attempted to ignore Harry's hair softly tickling his jaw, clenched his own in response, and focused on Moony. He didn't mind him smirking at him for once. After all, it gave him a distraction, and right now he needed all the distractions he could get, as he was trying very hard to get his mind off how well Harry fit in his arms.

Moony was not obliging and turned away talking quietly to Tonks. As Sirius attempted to distract himself, Molly arrived and began ushering the rest of the group through to the kitchen for supper. She must have overpowered Moody, he realised vaguely as he tried not to notice just how nice Harry smelled.

Eventually Harry pulled back and grinned at him just as Sirius was seriously considering returning to his canine form and running round in circles, chasing his tail for a bit. It would have been a good way to get away from Harry, particularly before he got any bad ideas about accidentally on purpose copping a feel of his unsuspecting godson. He'd have to lay off the hugs in future he could see that.

Sirius hung his head slightly; he was out of control already, not even ten minutes into the holiday. He hadn't seen Harry in months and now he was seeing him again right after that chat with Moony. What had his friend been thinking, putting ideas in his head about it not being so terrible to be more than a little obsessed with Harry? Remus had only managed to make Sirius realise it was not necessarily bad or wrong to feel the way he did.

Then he realized Harry was looking at him with an odd expression in his eyes; then he leaned closer with an inquisitive look on his face. Sirius panicked slightly, even as it crossed his mind how easy it would be to just lean forwards slightly and suck Harry's lower lip. He shook the rogue thought away. Had he given himself away so fast? His feelings weren't really that obvious, were they? All right, maybe to Moony, but he'd known him too well for too many years and he couldn't ever get away with much in the long term.

Okay, so admittedly it was likely that he'd slip up sooner or later and give himself away to Harry, but he hadn't expected Harry to catch on almost right away. He really hadn't wanted Harry to catch on this fast, unless of course, he felt the same way. Sirius almost snorted aloud at the idea, though snorting loudly in Harry's face would probably just make him think of him as an old nutter, not as a potentially desirable man. The chances of which were admittedly a little slim, with special thanks to Azkaban, but there was no need to turn his almost non-existent chance into a completely non-existent chance. That would just be stupid.

Harry grinned and stretched out a finger to lightly brush over his cheekbone and Sirius caught his breath. He could feel the heat radiating off that one fingertip. He was a goner. He breathed hard, trying not to get too excited over the simple and gentle touch. What was Harry doing? The finger traced down to his jaw and Sirius shivered slightly, fighting the urge to turn his face into Harry's hand. He had to realize what effect he was having on him, surely?

"Sirius, you're kind of erm… sparkly. Is that an intentional… a sort of Christmas decoration for you?"

He groaned and swiped a hand over the spot Harry had indicated. It was just more bloody glitter and some very wishful thinking on his part. "Better?" He managed in something approaching his normal voice.

"Still there," Harry responded, smiling.

"I fear we may all end up a bit sparkly in the near future," murmured another voice, thick with a curious mix of amusement and sympathy.

Sirius scrubbed at his face and glowered. He wondered if Moony had caught the probably goofy look on his face when Harry had touched him so innocently.

"Remus," Harry said, happily turning to embrace his old professor; he hadn't really got a chance at the station or in the car. Then he pulled back and raised an eyebrow, "Why?"

Sirius glared at his friend until Harry stepped back and released him. He knew he was being ridiculous, but somehow the sight of someone else within the circle of Harry's arms was just wrong, even if it was his very straight best friend.

Perhaps luckily for Remus he was released again only seconds after Harry made contact.  Sirius briefly felt smug at being hugged for so much longer, when he recalled his role as Harry's godfather. Of course the godfather would get the bigger hug, he reminded himself irritably. Stupid, he was stupid.

"You haven't had a look in the lounge yet then?"

"Not yet, should I?"

"It was a surprise, Moony!" Sirius whined, He'd planned to take Harry in without him suspecting a thing and Moony had just ruined it. Not that Remus had known about Sirius' plan, which in his daydreams had also involved lots of fairy light at some moment in time when there was no one else around, possibly followed by them both accidentally wandering under a conveniently placed sprig of mistletoe… Then he wondered uncomfortably if Moony was reading his mind again, which might be why he'd managed to spoil that plan.

"Sorry, I didn't realise."

Okay, so maybe it was a genuine mistake and he was just getting really nasty and suspicious. He'd probably been hanging around the likes of Moody for too long.

"Can I see?" Harry asked eagerly.

Sirius nodded. "Close your eyes a minute."

Harry obeyed and let himself be manoeuvred through the doorway by Sirius, who tried very hard not to enjoy manhandling him. There were far too many lean yet well-defined muscles for him not to find it pleasurable, though. He was definitely well on his way to becoming a dirty old man.

He got Harry through the door and stood him facing the fairy-lit tree. "Okay."

Harry's eyes blinked open. "Um," He mumbled.

Well, that sounded nice and promising, Sirius thought sarcastically to himself.

Sirius watched anxiously as Harry swept his eyes over the stunning snow scene. He had worked hard and thought he'd outdone himself, he only hoped Harry agreed.

Harry's mouth was slightly open and he was blinking hard, so hopefully that was a good sign.

With any luck he was amazed by how beautiful the usually dark and musty lounge looked, not shocked by how weird his godfather and his excessive Christmas decorations were.

The dropped jaw finally came back up just as Sirius was starting to wonder if he really had overdone it this time, and Harry launched himself at him. "This is incredible!" He cried.

Sirius grinned as he held Harry close for an all too brief moment. It had been worthwhile; Harry liked it.

Suddenly Sirius felt happier than he had in months, maybe even happier than he had been since his own time at Hogwarts. He was going to give Harry a great Christmas, and even if Harry would never see him in the way he'd like to be seen, he would have the satisfaction of knowing he had given Harry the best Christmas ever, because making Harry happy was suddenly the most important thing in the world, no matter what he had to do.

It was an alarming thought, so Sirius didn't stop to examine it. Instead he grabbed Harry and began ushering him out of the room again. "You got the preview, everyone else has to wait. Come on, let's get dinner and catch up."

They both moved towards the door, Harry craning back over his shoulder with a stupid grin on his face. Suddenly he stopped and bent down to touch the glittering substance. "What the hell is this stuff anyway? It isn't the usual sort of Christmas fake snow, is it?"

"Glitter snowpuffs. I sort of accidentally blew a couple up in the hall the other day and got the idea then."

Harry grinned and quickly began forming the stuff into a ball. He straightened up, tossing it from hand to hand.

Sirius grinned and was about to dive for his own handful of snow when Harry tossed the ball to splatter with deadly accuracy in the middle of his chest.

It was war.

Ten minutes later they were lying side by side, both liberally caked in glitter and snorting with laughter.

Neither of them heard the door open as Remus returned in search of them. He smiled and shook his head before withdrawing without a sound. He'd just tell Molly that Harry and Sirius were talking and should be left to themselves for now. It wasn't as if her excellent cooking would spoil if she were to save a bit for them.

Harry leaned his thigh against Sirius with a faint smile on his lips as he tried ineffectually again to rub the glitter off the lenses of his glasses. He could just magic it off of course, but where would the fun be in that? If he did that he'd have more reason to get up than to slump against the muscular warmth of Sirius.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Harry, Sirius was taking advantage of Harry's temporarily rather poor vision to gaze longingly at him.

Harry was too busy thinking back on the conversation he had held with Hermione earlier that day to notice Sirius staring at him. She had given him practical reassurance about his feelings and had refused to let him dismiss them.

Then, after she was done being supportive of his total right to have his feelings, she had shocked him by telling him he should first attempt to find out where he could stand with Sirius. Ever practical, Hermione had quickly decided the first thing they had to establish was his godfather's sexual inclinations. Once they had that established, she claimed, he would at least know whether or not his feeling were utterly pointless, and could move on from there.

Then, if Sirius was interested in men, he could start trying to find out if he could be interested in Harry personally. Harry supposed Hermione was right, but he had no idea how to approach the topic. He couldn't just casually lean over and say, "Hey Sirius. I was just wondering… would you rather smooch a witch or a wizard?" He shuddered; he couldn't do that. Hermione would have to do the thinking for him on this one and come up with something much cleverer.

He finally managed to scrub most of the glitter off with the hem of his T-shirt, and shoved his glasses back on to look at Sirius who hadn't moved from the spot next to him, and who was apparently looking right through him with an odd expression.

Harry gulped; he hadn't thought out loud, had he? No, he hadn't, he was sure of it. Sirius' eyes were glazed over, though. "Hey?" Harry said, waving a sparkly hand in front of his godfather's face.

Sirius blinked stupidly and then gently punched Harry's shoulder and grinned. "We were on our way to dinner, weren't we?"

Harry grinned back, enjoying this closeness. "I think a shower first might be a good bet, or I think I'll be finding glitter in interesting places for at least a week. This stuff is really starting to stick now."

Sirius' jaw dropped slightly and then he nodded fervently. "Yes, we should…go… shower…yes." He got quickly to his feet and headed for the door.

Harry stared after him in bewilderment; Sirius was being weird, even by his own special standards. He shrugged and followed him out of the door and upstairs anyway.

As he entered his own bedroom he looked over his shoulder at Sirius entering the room opposite. "I'll see you out here in fifteen minutes then?"

Sirius merely nodded.

The moment Sirius closed his bedroom door behind himself he slumped against the door and whimpered. He wasn't going to survive Christmas at this rate.

He made for the bathroom, shedding his clothes in every direction, uncaring of the glitter flying around the room. It had been bad enough in the summer, seeing Harry for the first time in almost a year and coming to realize that he was an incredibly attractive young man. But now that he'd had months to get worked up about seeing him again, coupled with Moony's fairly guilt-relieving little chat, he was struggling to function normally around Harry.

As he stepped under the hot spray of the shower he vaguely remembered Ron's stories concerning his sister's one time crush on Harry, and imagined that he'd soon be following her example and putting his elbows in the butter at mealtimes.

At least Ginny seemed to be happy with Neville these days. Sirius wasn't sure if he could have coped with Harry dating her right under his nose. Though, it was probably going to happen one day with someone and if someone else made Harry he happy he supposed he'd be able to grin and bear it for Harry's sake, albeit with very bad grace.

It was just that when Harry had been polishing his glasses with the hem of his T-shirt, he'd got un-asked for confirmation that Quidditch was very good for Harry's abs.

He'd just recovered from that when Harry had looked right at him and said with that wicked grin, that he might be finding glitter in interesting places and Sirius had wanted to ask which places he meant, even though he could imagine only too well which places Harry might have been referring to.

His body gave the predictable reaction to that imagining. Sirius glared at his treacherous body part and almost involuntarily ran a hand down his belly to reach for himself, but when he wrapped a firm hand around his erection and began stroking himself he stopped and changed the shower temperature to cold. He was not going to go there. If he did, he'd never be able to look Harry in the eyes again. Miserably, Sirius stood in the icy spray, his head lowered and his hands braced against the tiled wall, out of reach of temptation, until he heard a knock at his bathroom door.

"Sirius? Are you drowning yourself in there?"

Not a bad idea, he thought as he scrambled out of the shower, you'd almost certainly want to drown me if you knew I was thinking of you just now when I touched myself. Then he grabbed a towel to wrap around his waist, squeezed the water out of his thick shoulder length hair and opened the door. "Sorry, I was just about to get out anyway," He lied.

Harry nodded at him, his eyes wide. "Okay."

Sirius walked across the room to his wardrobe and quickly selected fresh clothes and realised Harry was still staring at him. Well, he wasn't shy. Sirius quickly dried off, dropped the towel and pulled on some black trousers before turning to face Harry again, who had gone quite obviously pale. "You okay? You look a bit off-colour."

Harry stared at him. "Oh, I um… I'm um, hungry. Lunch was a long time ago."

Sirius hastily brushed his hair and tied the damp strands back with a thin strip of leather. Wonderful, Sirius thought, Harry was hungry and he was just holding Harry up by fantasising in the shower. He grabbed a shirt, shoved his feet into his boots and brushed past Harry still doing up buttons. "Lets go and scrounge then; dinner might not yet be over."

Dinner wasn't over. Ron was still ploughing through his third helping of beef stew, and pumpkin pie was still warming in the oven.

Molly leapt up at Sirius and Harry's entrance and bustled over to the stove, "There you two are! Sit down, I saved you plenty." Within moments Sirius and Harry were tucking in.

Both were very glad to have the distraction of food, and both were very quiet.

Conversation was general and a lot of it consisted of Molly quizzing Hermione to see if all the others were working hard at school. Finally, Molly shooed all the 'children' off to bed and she and Arthur remained chatting to Sirius, Remus and Tonks.

Harry had just changed into his pyjama bottoms when there was a gentle tapping at his bedroom door. Shrugging on his dressing gown he opened it, not really surprised to see Hermione lurking in the corridor, also in her dressing gown and pyjamas.

"Come in Hermione," he sighed wearily. He'd been expecting her, especially as Ron returning from his shower had cut off their conversation earlier. He would tell Ron about his feelings for Sirius sometime, but not just yet, as he wasn't too sure about how his friend would react. Not everyone would accept it as calmly as Hermione had.

"So, Harry, are you okay?" She asked anxiously as she entered the room. "You were really quiet at dinner and pale when you came downstairs. Did you say something to Sirius?"

"Yes to the first, no to the second," he replied. "I just got a bit more than I bargained for when I went into Sirius' room to encourage him to get dressed a bit faster."

Hermione's mouth dropped open and then she frowned. "Did he do something?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "Hermione. I only wish he would."

Hermione blushed a fiery red. "Oh. Sorry."

"I just meant that he wasn't bothered about me standing there with my eyes hanging out as he got dressed. I felt like such a fool standing there all but drooling."

"I'd guess it just added some more fuel to the naughty pirate dreams then," she said with an embarrassed-sounding giggle.

Harry groaned. "I'm never going to live that down, am I?"

"What, you mean when you mumbled, 'Oh, Sirius' and pounced on your pillow? No, that will never be forgotten. Particularly when you tell Ron you are attracted to Sirius. He'll die laughing when he realizes what the dream was really about."

Harry shook his head. "I'll never tell him then."

"_Harry_."

"I will tell him, just not yet. It's enough for me to get used to, let alone Ron. If he guessed like you did then fine, but otherwise I think he may be best off not knowing."

"Okay, I can understand that, he was a bit odd for a day or so when you announced you thought you were gay, though I suspect that was mostly because he had to give up his dream of having you as a brother-in-law someday."

Harry just snorted at the idea. "Now what did you actually want? Is this a planning session that should be entitled 'How to Seduce Lovable Strays' by any chance?"

Hermione sat down on his bed with great dignity and curled her slipper-clad feet under herself. "I think we just need to bring up the topic of homosexuality in general conversation and try to get him to voice his views on the subject. It might at least give us a few hints, if not an outright answer. If that doesn't work then we'll simply have to be less subtle."

"Great," Harry responded unenthusiastically.

"Well, you think of something better then," Hermione said huffily.

"No, it is a good idea," Harry soothed quickly, "A much better scenario than my thoughts of earlier where I could have just asked if he preferred a witch or a wizard for a smooch."

Hermione tried not to smile. "Honestly. Well, let's hope it doesn't come to that, but really, does it matter if Sirius knows you want to know about his romantic interests?"

Harry flopped down next to her with a sigh. "I don't know Hermione, the odds aren't exactly in my favor here and I really don't want him finding out why I want to know, unless by some miracle he feels the same way."

"If you don't ask, chances are you don't get," Hermione reminded him. "Isn't it worth a risk with that all that Gryffindor courage?"

Harry scowled. "Okay, imagine that Ginny came up to you and asked if you were into girls, wouldn't you suspect she was personally interested in you?"

Hermione considered the question for about a second. "Well, no. She is dating Neville."

"But I'm not dating Neville, or rather I'm not dating a girl. Imagine she'd never seriously dated a guy, like I've never seriously dated a girl, what would you think then?"

"But Ginny isn't interested in girls. I know she isn't."

Harry collapsed back onto the bed and began smothering himself with a handy pillow. That was the trouble with Hermione sometimes; she took things so literally.

"Harry." She tugged at the pillow and he tugged back. "We need to discuss this."

"I don't think so," he replied, as one more yank on the pillow brought her sprawling down next to him on the bed. Removing the pillow from his head he looked at her squarely. "I just don't want him to find out, okay? I care so much that I almost don't want to know myself and have my hopes dashed. I'd almost rather live on not ever knowing. If he found out and hated me, or worse, felt sorry for me, I think I'd want to die. Well, maybe not literally, but you know?"

Her eyes darkened sympathetically and she leant closer to hug him awkwardly when there was a brief knock at the door and it slowly opened to reveal Sirius in the doorway.

Hermione sat up quickly, smoothing her hair, straightening her pyjamas and trying to get her feet back into the slippers she had lost when Harry had tugged too hard on that pillow. The look on Sirius' face told her exactly what he thought he'd interrupted. Obviously he hadn't cottoned on to the fact that she and Ron had finally started dating.

Harry was straightening up too. "Hi, Sirius," he said awkwardly.

"Sorry to interrupt," Sirius said coolly as he stood in the doorway, dying a little on the inside. He'd known it would happen sooner or later and admittedly he'd hoped it would be later rather than sooner. But he hadn't realized until a moment ago just how much it was going to hurt.

"No, it's okay. I was just going to go and say goodnight to Ron and go to bed anyway." Hermione answered quickly.

"There you are," Ron's voice chimed in from behind Sirius. "I was knocking on your door and wondering where you were."

Sirius stepped aside and Ron entered the room, and Hermione seized the opportunity to make the situation between her and Harry clear, just in case Harry was wrong about needing a miracle. She stood up and wrapped her arms around Ron and kissed him firmly on the lips. "Why don't we go and sit in my room for a little while," she suggested, as Ron blushed, unused to such a public demonstration from his girlfriend.

"Okay," he mumbled eagerly. "Sleep well mate," he added to Harry, "Try not to have any more dreams about pirates."

Harry snorted, "Thanks mate. Goodnight both of you."

"Pirates?" Sirius queried.

"Yeah, Harry was having this really intense nightmare this morning about pirates. I think it was probably Hermione's fault, lending him dodgy books. It looked and sounded pretty funny though."

"It had nothing to do with my book," Hermione protested.

"Funny how?" Sirius asked at the same time.

"It was to do with that muggle film we saw during the summer, remember?" Hermione went on, ignoring Sirius.

Ron looked at Harry with fresh interest. "But wasn't that the film with that actor that-" he began, but was shut up by Hermione giving him another kiss and hauling him towards the door.

They went, closing Harry into the room with Sirius, who couldn't for the life of him remember why he had stopped in to see Harry.

"Well, that was so interesting I've forgotten what I came in here for now," he said, smiling broadly.

If he sounded dementedly happy, that was because he was. For a few horrible moments he'd genuinely thought he'd walked in on Harry and Hermione about to get into bed with each other. Then she'd leapt up and made a fuss of Ron and he'd almost kissed Ron himself he was so grateful to him for being Hermione's boyfriend, thus eliminating the possibility of Harry being Hermione's lover.

He shook his head. He really needed to get a life beyond Harry. One day, that scene of Harry lying on the bed twined in someone's arms would play out again, only one day it wouldn't be so innocent.

Harry mock-scowled. "I'm sure you'll get all the embarrassing details in the morning of what I said and did." Harry made up his mind to get to Ron early the next morning and ensure he didn't discuss the bit of the dream where Harry had been moaning his godfather's name.

"I look forward to it," Sirius teased. "Anyway, I remembered what I was here for. Molly is going to Diagon Alley tomorrow after breakfast and wanted to know who was coming along with her. If you want to go it'll mean an early breakfast. Ginny and Neville are going, but Ron and Hermione are probably staying here, according to Molly."

Harry shrugged. "I got all my gifts in Hogsmeade, so I think I'll stay here and spend a bit of time with you, if that's okay."

Sirius grinned happily. Harry wanted to spend time with him. "More than okay! I'll see you at breakfast."

Harry nodded and shrugged off his dressing gown, ready to get into bed.

Sirius carefully reminded himself to breathe.

"Sleep well Sirius."

"You too. Don't let the pirates get you."

"Mmm, it was mostly just one very devilish pirate and I'll do my best not to have that dream again. It isn't very restful."

Sirius shook his head. "Goodnight Harry," he said as he left the room.

Harry settled down in bed with a faint smile as he anticipated a tomorrow spent with Sirius. He closed his eyes, but sleep refused to come and he tossed and turned trying to get comfortable. It was no good. The image of Sirius' naked backside didn't shift. He flopped onto his back and dragged a hand through his hair; he could see that he was in for a long and trying night.

Sirius crept across the landing and entered his own room, and for the second time that day he slumped back against the door and whimpered. His chances of survival were decreasing by the minute.

When Harry had just casually whisked off his dressing gown, revealing taut muscles and firm skin that Sirius could quite happily imagine running his tongue over every inch of, he'd thought he might spontaneously combust on the spot. He'd actually had to remind himself to breathe, but then the little voice in his head telling him 'in' and 'out' had suddenly developed a naughty twist and he'd found himself unwillingly putting different connotations on those innocent words.

Sirius lurched across the room, tugging carelessly at his clothes. He needed another cold shower. Now.

Sirius shook himself like a dog and tried not to shiver as he blundered out of the shower and wrapped himself up in a handy towel. This close affiliation with icy water couldn't go on; he'd end up giving himself hypothermia or something, which could prove tricky to explain. He paused by his bed but knew he would never be able to relax with a hundred thoughts of Harry rushing through his head. He pulled his discarded trousers back on and absently paced the room.

He considered going downstairs to get roaring drunk, but knew there would be people sniffing at him and giving him reproachful looks in the morning if he did, so that was out. Besides, if he got drunk he'd probably only lurch about and do idiotic things. It wouldn't stop him feeling the way he did.

When he'd had a binge at the end of the summer, to his shame he'd almost blurted out something really lascivious at Harry. If his slightly addled memory served him correctly, only Tonks tripping over her own feet and knocking him over had saved him from ruining what little was left of his life. No, excessive drinking was probably best avoided, particularly as Harry always looked at him with such hurt and reproachful eyes when he drank too much.

Sirius slumped back onto his bed with a sound somewhere between a moan and a howl. Every damn thing came back to Harry these days and there was nothing he could do to get away from it, not that he was sure he'd want to get away, even if he could. The pain of being around Harry and being unable to be what he wanted to be to him couldn't be worse than the grief of not having him near at all.

Maybe just a small drink, he counseled himself, maybe just enough to help him sleep easier. He stood up and shrugged his shirt on, not bothering to button it. It was well past midnight; no one would be around to see him.

He opened his door and crept out, focused on finding where Remus had ineffectually hidden the Ogden's this time, only to be distracted by a thump from Harry's room. He paused aghast, his heart racing.

That sounded like Harry's headboard banging. What if Ginny had got tired of Neville and was in there with Harry? Maybe even Hermione, what if she was sleeping with both boys? What if Harry knew he was sneaking off to drink and was about to angrily come after him? Then he calmed himself and tried not to think such surreal thoughts.

He leaned closer to the door, listening intently, grimacing as his ear made contact with the cold metal of the keyhole. What was wrong with him? Why didn't he just knock and see if Harry was okay like a normal person would? After all, it wasn't as if he was already drunk or anything.

"Right, normal. Be normal," he mumbled to himself as he knocked gently. "Great, now I'm talking to myself as well."

There was no answer from within, so Sirius slowly cracked the door open, tapping on it as he did so. "Harry?"

There was a load groan and Sirius hastily swung the door wide and stepped towards the bed, trying to see if Harry was alone and all right. He could dimly make out the outline of just one person in the bed, which was good. "Is something wrong?" He asked.

There was a sudden rustle of bedcovers as Harry rolled off the bed and crashed to the floor in a thrashing heap at his feet.

As Sirius stooped down to see if Harry was okay, Harry bolted upright breathing hard, and they just missed thumping their heads together.

"Sirius," Harry gasped, stretching his hand out to clutch Sirius' sleeve before he could think.

"Yeah, I'm right here," Sirius managed in what he hoped was a soothing voice. "Evil Dark Lord dream or Pirate dream?"

Harry withdrew his hand and made a play of rubbing his eyes. "Um, pirates again." He gulped as he tucked the bedcovers higher up his body and quickly drew his knees up; just what he didn't need, Sirius seeing the tented bedcovers. "Did I, um, did I actually wake you up?"

Sirius gave a short bark of laughter and sat back on his haunches. "You weren't that loud. I was just going downstairs for a drink. Are you okay now? Do you need me to sit here for a bit?"

Harry ignored the questions. "Alcoholic drink?"

Sirius nodded. "I couldn't sleep, okay? I thought it might send me off a bit faster."

Harry scrambled to his feet with his bedcovers held in an artfully draped bunch around his waist and sat back on the edge of his bed with a small frown. As much as he loved Sirius, he hated the way he drank on occasion. "Are you sure you don't mean get drunk into oblivion?"

"It wasn't my intent."

Nice evasive answer, Harry thought as he fumbled for his glasses. "Well as I don't seem to be having much luck with sleep either, I might as well join you for a few small ones. Staying up drinking with you has to beat some impossible dreams that promote restfulness about as much as drinking ten cups of coffee does."

Sirius frowned. "What the hell kind of movie was this that you're having such extreme dreams? I went out to see a few muggle movies when I was about your age, but I never saw anything that gave me nightmares."

Harry flushed and stammered out quickly, "Nothing special, just about pirates and stuff."

Sirius tried to suppress an evil grin. "Eat your heart out, Voldemort. Pirates have done what you couldn't. Harry is officially too scared to sleep."

"Shut up Sirius."

"Sorry. Ron was right, it is kind of funny, particularly when you dived out of bed and tried to strangle your sheet."

Harry just huffed exasperatedly.

Sirius took a deep breath and tried to be serious; if this dream really had Harry this scared it would probably be a good thing if he were to stay with him and not poke fun at him. He forced himself to look at Harry and think of him as a scared godson, not a desirable Sex object. He could stay with him; it wouldn't be a problem as long as he kept his distance. "I think that maybe I should stay with you for a while, just so I can wake you up if you start dreaming again."

Harry gulped. Should he let Sirius stay and watch over him while he had saucy dreams about him? If he didn't ask him to stay though, he was pretty sure that Sirius would just vanish off to wherever he kept his booze and get drunk again. So he mustered a smile and rearranged himself comfortably on his bed, conscious of his hands shaking as he did so, and watched out of the corner of his eye as Sirius lowered himself on to the chair beside the bed. "Thanks Sirius," he forced himself to say.

"Any time."

Silence reigned for a few minutes before Harry spoke up again, giving voice to something that had genuinely been bothering him and was easier to talk about in near darkness, "Sirius."

"Mm."

"Do you think some people are meant to be alone?"

"What?"

"You know, by themselves. Mum had Dad, Ron has Hermione, Ginny has Neville, Molly has Arthur, but I always seem to end up on my own."

"I'm on my own too. Besides, you're a bit young yet to be worrying about ending up alone permanently."

Harry gathered all his courage and asked, "Did you ever have someone or want to have someone?"

Sirius frowned. Where had all this come from? Poor Harry must be feeling really left out by his friends all pairing off, but what to answer? He could hardly tell Harry that he wanted nothing more than to be with him. In any case, Sirius' own love life had essentially been on hold for a decade and a half and there wasn't all that much to tell from before that anyway. He settled on half the truth, choosing his words carefully for once in his life.

"I wasn't all that many years older than you when I was sent to Azkaban and hadn't really been seriously involved with anyone at that time. I was too busy with the Order and not ready to settle down back then, and as you know I've been in Azkaban or on the run or stuck here ever since, so there hasn't been the opportunity. But someday, if my name is cleared then yes, I'd like to not be alone any more."

"You mean when your name is cleared," Harry said firmly. "What about someone in the Order, or someone else who knows that you're innocent? You could be involved with one of them, now couldn't you?"

That was getting a bit close to the mark, so Sirius merely grunted and shifted in his chair.

"Sorry," Harry said quickly, "Are you uncomfortable?

Like you wouldn't believe, Sirius thought, though not for the reasons you think.

"You can have one of my pillows to sit on if you like," Harry went on, oblivious to Sirius' whirling emotions.

"Thanks." Sirius absently accepted the pillow and held it in his lap. There were feathers escaping from it, he noted. He held up the pillow, eager to get the conversation onto less difficult ground. "You been pillow fighting?"

"What?"

"I'm turning the light on," he announced before doing just that. He waited for their eyes to adjust and for Harry to scramble for his glasses and then waved the incriminating pillow at Harry. "Loose feathers."

Harry eyed the pillow and then ducked his head, apparently mortally embarrassed. Sirius took in the furious blush and shrugged his shoulders before leaning over to thump Harry lightly over the head with the pillow. "Don't worry, there are more pillows in the cupboard, I think. I always used to have pillow fights at your age. In fact, I feel like one now." He hefted the pillow in his hand and waved it at Harry who quickly got the idea, tossed his glasses aside, snatched up his other pillow and thwacked Sirius in return.

For a few minutes they enthusiastically beat each other around the head and shoulders with the pillows until the already abused pillow Sirius held exploded feathers all over the place and they sat down chuckling on the edge of Harry's bed.

Sirius looked at the mess. It was good to know that he could still treat Harry normally and not spend every single second in his company wanting to kiss him or touch him. Well, he still did want to, but it wasn't the foremost thought in his brain for once.

Harry grinned happily at Sirius who grinned stupidly back; this beat drinking himself into a stupor any time. Anything with Harry was better than anything else that didn't involve Harry.

Harry twirled a feather idly between his finger and thumb before pitching it up in the air and watching it fall. He stood up, stuck his glasses back on and swept more feathers off his bed. "If I wake up looking like a chicken, with feathers stuck to me in the morning, I'm blaming you."

Sirius just grinned and relaxed on Harry's bed, lacing his fingers behind his head and propping himself up on the surviving pillow. Harry rolled his eyes and tossed the sheet to drape over Sirius' head. An indignant protest was faintly heard from under the sheet but Harry ignored it with a wicked grin as he grabbed his wand and began banishing feathers.

As he crossed the room to grab a cushion out of the armchair beside the fire, he heard a soft snore coming from under the sheet. Apparently Sirius was fast asleep, or possibly plotting something that Harry needed to believe he was asleep for. Harry didn't put anything past Sirius, so he approached the gently snoring lump in his bed with caution and carefully eased the sheet away. His heart gave a furious jump as he realized that Sirius really was asleep.

In his bed no less.

Harry stared down at his sleeping godfather and wondered what to do. There was nothing to stop him from climbing into bed with him and going to sleep too, was there? Harry propped the cushion up beside Sirius and sat down gingerly on the bed. Should he wake him and send him back to his own bed? But then Sirius might not be able to get back to sleep and might go off and drink. Besides, if he was honest with himself, he just plain wanted to sleep next to Sirius and besides, shouldn't you always let sleeping dogs lie?

His mind made up, Harry spread his quilt out to cover both of them and scrambled into bed. He stared at Sirius for a while, watching him sleep, enjoying being able to look at Sirius' tiredly handsome face without fear of being caught staring. Then, abruptly, he yawned and blinked his eyes tiredly. Weeks of no proper sleep were catching up with him and he was forced to admit that if he didn't stop staring soon, he'd just fall asleep where he was and wake up sprawled on Sirius with his glasses still on, which could prove both embarrassing and somewhat hard to explain. Reluctantly he removed his glasses and extinguished the light.

Within moments he too was sleeping peacefully.


	3. Chapter 3

Sirius blinked sleepily as he slowly drifted back to consciousness. He could hear the thunder of feet in the corridor outside his room and was sure he could faintly smell bacon. His stomach growled loudly in response. It must be morning already, he decided as he shifted uncomfortably, his arm was stiff and he couldn't move it properly. He turned his head slightly and almost had a fit.

His arm was stiff because someone was lying on it, pinning it firmly to the mattress. Sirius gulped. What had he done? Had he taken to sleep walking and somehow got into bed with Harry?

No, he shook his head to clear it; he'd been in to check on Harry and had ended up falling asleep. That was all. Relieved, Sirius collapsed back against the pillow for a moment before he began wriggling his arm to get it out from under Harry, who of course couldn't just do the decent thing and let him get away unscathed to have his lecherous thoughts all to himself.

Harry snuggled closer the moment he started trying to move away and nuzzled a slightly stubbly jaw against the bared skin of his chest. A startled whimper froze in Sirius' throat. This was too much and just not fair. He struggled harder to remove his arm, but Harry was surprisingly heavy for an apparently slightly built man, and he also had his arm draped possessively around Sirius' waist.

Sirius was on the point of hyperventilating as he realized this, and the muscles of his belly twitched beneath Harry's arm, he was about to remind himself to breathe normally again, but he recalled how well that had turned out last time and tried to divert his mind, which had returned to single track again.

Softly chanting a litany of choice words that would have brought shocked rebukes from both Molly and Hermione, Sirius finally managed to force himself to lie still and calm down; if he just pushed Harry away it would probably wake him up with one hell of a jump and the situation would be no better than if he let Harry wake up by himself and move away of his own accord without embarrassment. Yes, that was a good idea; it also meant that Sirius could lie still a little longer and savour the feeling of Harry in his arms. He traced his fingers lightly across the arm Harry has flung over his waist and wrapped his own still slightly stiff arm more tightly around Harry. He was just savouring the moment, he told himself firmly, not taking advantage.

Harry had no clue that he had moved during the night and was even now causing Sirius some serious problems. If he had known, he probably would have woken up, been horribly embarrassed, and leapt out of bed as if he'd been nibbled by one of Hagrid's less pleasant pets. But as it was he slept on peacefully until there was a loud hammering at his bedroom door.

Harry jerked up into a sitting position with a start as Hermione began calling him to get up because she wanted to talk to him before breakfast. Harry glanced down at Sirius lying snug beside him with a slightly bewildered and sleepy look on his face and leapt out of bed, heading speedily for the door before Hermione unwittingly said anything that might incriminate him.

He fumbled to open the door, half-blind without his glasses, and eventually swung the door open, scarlet-faced and gasping.

Hermione stared at him for a moment and then grinned rather wickedly, but as she opened her mouth to speak Harry launched himself clumsily out of the door, slamming it behind him and squashed Hermione into Sirius' door opposite them.

"Really Harry, what is the matter with you!" She protested indignantly.

"Sorry, but Sirius is in there and I was afraid you'd say something about him having the starring role in my dream or something."

"Sirius is in your room?!" Hermione's voice rose in surprise.

"Shhh! Not like that. He came in to talk to me last night, thought I was having a nightmare and stayed to comfort me. He just happened to fall asleep on my bed and I didn't have the heart to move him."

Hermione blinked at him, slowly registering the information before she pushed urgently at his chest. "Harry, get off."

Harry took a step back. "Sorry about that, I just panicked. Why did you want to talk to me anyway?"

Hermione opened her mouth to speak but as she did so Harry's bedroom door opened and Sirius stood awkwardly in the doorway. "Sorry I fell asleep on you last night, Harry. Some comfort I am, probably taking up too much space in your bed and snoring away like an old warthog."

Harry grinned helplessly.  "That's okay. I think just having someone with me helped me sleep better. Are you going down for breakfast?"

Sirius nodded and stepped around Harry and Hermione, making for his own door. "I'll see you down there soon?"

Harry nodded and Sirius went into his own room and shut the door.

Hermione grabbed his arm and propelled him quickly into his own room. "Are you ready to question Sirius at breakfast?"

"Huh?"

"Keep up, Harry," she chided. "We agreed on all this yesterday."

Harry shuffled across the room and fumbled for his glasses, not feeling quite awake enough yet to deal with Hermione in her forceful mode. "Oh, uh… I dunno."

"I can begin the conversation. You don't even have to say anything," she pressed.

"Hermione, I don't know if I want to know."

"But what if he tells you exactly what you want to hear? Isn't it worth the risk?"

"What I really want to hear from Sirius is hardly something that he might say over breakfast, or even in public."

Hermione flushed slightly. "Well, not that obviously. But surely it is better to know if your hopes are grounded in reality? If he only likes women, wouldn't you rather begin coping with that and then look around for a man who might be interested?"

Harry rubbed his forehead in frustration. In the few moments between awakening and bolting upright at the sound of Hermione's voice he had been lying wrapped up tight in Sirius' arms, he was sure of it. He hadn't imagined how wonderful that had felt, and that tiny taste of heaven simply hadn't been enough.

"Harry?" Hermione was looking at him with concern in her eyes. "Don't let me push you, but I think this would be for the best. This way you can either move on or forwards."

"I'm not sure. I just need to think about it. Maybe we could leave it for now, just let me enjoy Christmas with my stupid delusions. That still leaves me with plenty of time in the New Year to smack back into reality."

"Reality could be pleasant, you never know."

Harry snorted disbelievingly and slammed open his wardrobe door with unnecessary violence and began scrabbling for clothes.

Hermione deemed it wise to retreat with Harry in this frame of mind. "I'll see you at breakfast." She called over her shoulder as she hurried away.

Harry scrambled into his clothes and glared at his reflection in the mirror, his hair just would not lie down. Now it was longer and waved around the back of his neck, and almost down to his jaw, you would think the extra length would weigh it down, but no, it still stuck up in all directions.

After a short and unpleasant exchange with his mirror he stamped out of his room and down the stairs. His temper did not improve when he heard Ron laughing loudly and saying to Sirius, "Oh, I wish I'd seen that! Priceless!"

Harry stomped into the kitchen and regarded the occupants of the table with a rather jaundiced eye. He'd completely forgotten to talk to Ron about not telling Sirius about his dream.

Sirius shoved out the chair opposite him with his foot and smiled cheekily at Harry from around a mouthful of toast.

Harry's rage faded abruptly. It was almost impossible to stay angry with Sirius around, particularly when he smiled in that breath-catchingly mischievous way.

"Fall out of the wrong side of the bed, mate?" Ron asked grinning.

Harry mock-glared at Sirius, and then at Ron too, just for good measure.

"I told Sirius about you trying to murder your pillow back at school yesterday and he was just saying you rolled out of bed wrestling with your sheet. Did it fight back?"

Harry poured himself pumpkin juice and stole a crisp strip of bacon from Ron's plate, stuffing it all into his mouth and grinning at Ron's indignant protest.

Then he froze in horror at Ron's next words, struggling to swallow fast enough to interrupt the flow of words. "Anyway, before you came in mate, I was about to tell Sirius what came after the pillow killing, how you were mumbling in your sleep about a puppy and Sirius and then -"

"You misheard, Ron," Hermione chipped in quickly, noticing the panic on Harry's face. "He didn't say puppy _or_ Sirius, he said something else entirely. It was all there in the film, you just must have missed that bit."

Ron paused with a forkful of scrambled eggs suspended halfway to his mouth. "But I was right beside him, I heard what he said. You were only there at the end."

"Yes, when he sat up and screamed that there was a man overboard." Hermione said quickly with a little laugh, trying to get the conversation onto less touchy subjects.

Ron scowled. "Hermione, that was the best bit of the story, it was really loud, like this:"

Ron then impersonated Harry waking up, to the amusement of the whole table.

Sirius snickered softly and looked at Harry, who was now staring at his plate in abject mortification, just wishing that the marmalade pot were big enough for him to crawl into to hide. Sirius frowned slightly; it was only a bit of harmless teasing and fun. What was troubling Harry so?

"But anyway," Ron carried on obliviously, "I'm starting to wonder if these dreams are all that they seem to be." He waggled his eyebrows suggestively at Harry. "Got anything to say to that, mate?"

"Apart from 'shut you mouth', not really." Harry managed amiably enough as he kicked Ron under the table.

"Ooh, I think I may have stumbled onto the truth of these so-called scary dreams," Ron said gleefully, rubbing his shin as he watched his friend blush.

"The truth?" Tonks asked curiously.

"Yeah," Ron said smugly as he carefully watched Harry's expression. Then he suddenly remembered that not everyone at the table was privy to information about Harry's sexuality and abruptly fell silent, turning an unnecessary amount of attention to buttering his toast.

"Yet, you leave us hanging," Remus said with a smile.

"Uh, yeah. I think I'd only embarrass Harry a bit too much if I said."

There was an awkward silence.

"Well, perhaps you can explain this film to me at least. I'm rather at sea so to speak," Remus offered eventually.

"Bad pun, Moony old man," Sirius grunted.

"Ooh, it was a great film," Ginny rushed in. "The hero, Will Turner, was simply gorgeous and did all sorts of brave things to save the girl he loved from these evil zombie type pirates."

"The heroine, Elizabeth, was pretty nice too." Ron mumbled. "But not as nice as Hermione," he added quickly, suddenly remembering his girlfriend sitting beside him.

"So Harry is dreaming about scary evil zombie pirates?" Sirius asked, trying not to laugh. "It is embarrassing I grant you, but could be far worse."

Harry sighed, he might as well get this over with. "No, Ron was right that my dreams had nothing scary in them."

"Huh? No pirates?" Sirius wrinkled his nose in confusion.

Harry mustered a lopsided grin, "Well it did have pirates, or rather just _one_ pirate. But it was one of the good pirates, well…sort of good anyway."

"Captain Sparrow!" Ron choked out, realizing what his friend might be trying to convey.

"Captain Sparrow?" Remus asked just before Sirius could.

Harry grinned as rakishly as he could. "Hell yes! Captain Sparrow is sex on legs."

"Harry!" Ginny laughed, "Captain Sparrow is way too old for you!"

Tonks erupted into giggles, spilling pumpkin juice onto the table and Remus' sleeve. "I see mate, _that_ kind of dream!"

Remus sighed, wrung out his sleeve and gently righted the mug with a glimmer of interest in his eyes. How likely was it that a pirate captain would be a woman? He stole a look at Sirius, he was listening intently but he seemed to be his usual dense self.

"Forty-ish is not too old for me," Harry retorted.

Sirius' eyebrows shot up at that comment; he wasn't even forty yet, so maybe there was life in the old dog yet.

Ginny smiled and shrugged. "Give me Will Turner any day, or Neville," she added, nudging her shoulder against a blushing Neville.

Harry smiled back; this was easier than he thought it would be. He looked at Hermione, who smiled encouragingly. This was it. "Well, I suppose I'm just more attracted to dark and dangerous older men."

Remus hid a smile behind his teacup; unmindful of the fried egg Tonks had just dropped into his lap as he took in the deeply shell-shocked expression on Sirius' face. There was hope yet.

Harry held his breath and waited; well there hadn't been a negative reaction so far, but then the words had only just left his mouth and might not yet have sunk in. He didn't quite dare to look at Sirius. Some Gryffindor you are, he told himself, and forced himself to raise his eyes.

Sirius found his Godson's penetrating eyes fixed upon him, managed to shut his slightly open mouth and swallowed hard. It was difficult. He hadn't remembered to chew that damn bit of toast and it now felt like he had a bludger wedged in there. Emotion threatened to close his throat completely, and didn't help either.

It was one thing to want to be with Harry, something else entirely to learn that it wasn't such a complete impossibility as he'd thought. He mentally counted off the short list of attributes Harry had just reeled off and compared it to himself, and favourably. He stared dazedly at Harry for a moment before realising that he was doubtless making Harry uneasy, and that the jam on his toast was sliding off the bread and oozing stickily down his hand. He hastily licked his fingers and abandoned the toast, hunting through his mind for something supportive to say that didn't run along the lines of 'I like men too.' Which would only sound like a come on.

Harry watched Sirius' stunned expression and winced. That told him a lot, though at least Sirius didn't seem angry or upset, just a bit surprised maybe. Then he had to look away again when Sirius began sucking the jam from his fingers. Harry could think of other things for Sirius to suck, but didn't imagine that Sirius would particularly appreciate that thought.

After another few short moments of presumably stunned silence Tonks saluted him with her fork and said, "Good for you mate. Older men are so much more considerate than younger ones. Generally speaking anyway." With that unconcerned pronouncement she leaned over Remus and attempted to retrieve her lost egg.

Harry half-smiled to himself, well that was one good reaction anyway and Remus was smiling benignly at him, at least he was until he yelped loudly and glared at Tonks.

"Sorry," Tonks said grinning unrepentantly, "I lost my egg in your lap in the excitement of that announcement."

"That was my leg you just stabbed."

Sirius snorted delightedly, "Careful you don't stab a sausage too while you're down there Tonks, or that'll be one less of your considerate older men available for action."

Tonks only seemed to grasp the implications of that statement when the rest of the table gave in to great howls of merriment and Ron sprayed a mouthful of pumpkin juice several feet across the table even as he tried to hold in his chuckles. Her face pink with embarrassment Tonks misjudged her next feint with her fork and toppled off her chair into Remus' lap only succeeding in making the laughter louder.

"Would you like to sit on your bacon too, so the rest of your breakfast doesn't get cold?" Sirius asked her innocently, relishing the opportunity to get at Moony for a change.

Remus flushed too and Tonks glared and tried to get to her feet but only succeeded in tipping the chair over entirely. Remus and Tonks slowly tilted backwards, their legs skyward for a brief moment before they both lay in a tangled heap on the floor.

Sirius noticed that Remus' hands had ended up planted on a part of Tonks' anatomy where they simply didn't belong in public; couldn't restrain himself and pointed and simply roared with laughter. This was shaping up to be the best morning ever.

Tonks scrambled awkwardly to her feet, the egg stuck fast to her bottom. Which nearly finished Sirius off. He slumped forwards on to the table still laughing and felt his elbow sink into the butter. Which only increased his amusement yet another notch.

Harry watched Sirius still chuckling as he pulled his elbow out of the butter. He was glad Sirius wasn't too shocked or upset to make jokes and have a good laugh, but was it his imagination or was there a hint of hysteria to the amusement? Bearing in mind that Sirius had given way to manic laughter just before he was hauled off to Azkaban too; this was not shaping up to be the best of mornings.

Finally, long after a flustered Tonks and Remus had resumed their places at the table, and everyone had finished breakfast. Harry found himself in the kitchen with Sirius, Ron and Hermione. They had been elected to clear up the debris from breakfast, including the egg that Tonks had eventually hurled at Sirius, only narrowly missing him.

While Sirius was absorbed for a moment in unpeeling the worse-for-wear egg from the wall behind his seat, Hermione gestured urgently at the door and then raised her eyebrows questioningly at Harry. She was asking if he wanted to be alone with Sirius he realised and nodded quickly.

Hermione immediately picked up her cue. "Harry, I just remembered that I need to get some books from Diagon Alley. Would you and Sirius mind awfully if Ron and I were to go with Molly after all?"

Ron looked up with an unusually perceptive look on his face, understood what was going on and put up no argument.

Harry shook his head teasingly, "More books Hermione? I suppose that would be okay, just as long as they aren't for my Christmas present. I expect better than books if I'm going to do you share of chores."

Hermione smiled and hurried to the door, "Come on Ron. See you later you two."

Ron grinned and managed a shaky wave. "Bye."

"Bye." Harry echoed.

Sirius grinned and fluttered a teacloth at them as if shooing them out.

The door closed behind Ron and Hermione and Harry could faintly hear them shouting to Molly and the others that they wanted to come shopping too.

"Well, you have me alone now. Did you want to talk to me?" Sirius asked gently, all traces of mocking humour gone.

Harry blinked in surprise, "Was it that obvious?"

Sirius just grinned and sat back down in the chair he had vacated a few minutes earlier. "I know I look thick, but yes, it was quite obvious."

Harry hesitatingly took the seat beside him and rested his elbows on the table. Now he had Sirius alone he was a little at a loss at what to say to him. Particularly with his announcement worded the way it had been. If only he had just said he was interested in men, not come out with specifics that could be applied to his probably horrified godfather.

"Harry." Sirius prompted. "You don't have to talk about this yet if you aren't ready."

Harry roused himself, "No, I think I should. But really I just wanted to know that you aren't horrified or anything."

Sirius couldn't resist a small bark of laughter; Harry just had no clue. Obviously he was a better actor than he thought. "Horrified, no. Shocked, yes."

"Oh. I didn't mean to shock you. I'm sorry." Harry dropped his head and hunched his shoulders slightly.

Sirius raked his fingers impatiently through his hair. He was somehow making a real hash of this. "Maybe shocked was the wrong word." He said reaching out a tentative hand to clasp Harry's nearest shoulder. He felt Harry's muscles clench at the contact but then the tension seemed to flow out of him. "Surprised probably works better. I have no issues with who you are attracted to, if I did that would make me a hypocrite. I just seem to recall you having a girlfriend or two over the years."

Harry smiled and leaned into Sirius's touch. He'd been worried for nothing, okay it wasn't the response from his dreams but the chances of Sirius suddenly being overcome with passion and fulfilling all his fantasies on the kitchen table wasn't very likely. Calm acceptance was enough. "Well, put it this way. If there was a scale on which sexuality could be measured, I'd be right down the gay end of bisexual."

Sirius snorted, "Good description." He fiddled with the butter knife, and turned sideways to look at Harry, "Actually that sums me up pretty good as well." He confided.

Harry's heart momentarily stopped beating and then kick-started again with a powerful bounce, "How did I not know that?" he asked, unsurprised to realise that his voice sounded several octaves higher than normal.

Sirius shrugged, "Never came up I suppose. I haven't exactly been around much for you to talk to."

"Not that it was your fault." Harry defended hotly.

"No I suppose not. Well, you know now and I'm still the same guy you always knew and to be honest, even if I had seen more of you in the past, my total lack of love-life still wouldn't exactly figure high in the list of things to talk about."

Harry swallowed hard on a small knot of panic building in his chest, this was the perfect opportunity to question Sirius and make it look like idle curiosity. He was pleasantly surprised when his voice came out not sounding like the squeak of a small rodent, "I don't understand why it would lack so much, I'm sure there are plenty of men who would like to be involved with you. I mean, nearly all the people who know you are innocent are men, so you must have at least one option."

Sirius nearly bent the butter knife in two at Harry's words. Was Harry flirting with him? He didn't dare ask, so he smiled seductively instead. "Well, I don't know about that. I'm still a bit of a wreck after Azkaban; I'm not really even close to being attractive anymore."

Harry grinned and gave Sirius a playful shove, "You haven't changed that much surely. Once you ditched the crazed expression you looked quite approachable and most of the time you manage to act quite normally."

"I meant physically." Sirius grumbled. "I'm getting old and decrepit."

"You heard Tonks. Older men are superior. I must say I am inclined to agree with her."

Sirius shook his head disbelievingly, if this wasn't flirtation then he was more out of practice than he'd realised. But surely Harry couldn't be serious?

"Have it your own way then." Harry muttered in response to Sirius' head shaking. "But if you were so much more attractive back then, I doubt I could have coped with seeing you pre-Azkaban."

Sirius caught his breath and turned sideways in his chair to face Harry properly, "Why not?"

Harry flushed but stared back steadily, "It might have been too much for me, because I think you are more than attractive enough now."

Sirius froze, his eyes widening in surprise. Even though he'd hoped the conversation was going this way he was still stunned speechless.

Harry turned away quickly, "Sorry, I shouldn't have said anything. I should have known you wouldn't feel that way for me, I've only embarrassed both of us now." He hastily stood up sending his chair crashing over backwards and fled from the room leaving Sirius staring stupidly after him for a minute, before he leapt up and chased after Harry.

Sirius took the stairs to Harry's room two at a time and flung himself through the door. "Harry, I do feel the same." He gasped out. Hedwig removed her head from under her wing and glared at him, but Harry wasn't in his room. Sirius strode across to the bathroom door and pushed it open. Empty too. Sirius sank down on Harry's bed with a growl of displeasure. If only he hadn't been too surprised to speak, he might have Harry in his arms by now. Where the devil had Harry gone though?

Harry was in the lounge. He felt sure it was the last place Sirius would think to look; after all it wasn't exactly cosy in its current state. He eased himself down in front of the fire and dropped his head into his hands. He'd soared to dizzying heights of happiness when Sirius had admitted he was attracted to men too, only to swiftly crash back down again after his stupid confession hadn't gone quite the way he hoped. He couldn't decide what had made him blurt that last comment out, the only explanation was that he'd been overcome with excitement, and Sirius' close proximity had somehow loosened both his brain and his vocal chords.

He didn't know how long he'd been sitting there but suddenly there was a gentle brush of fingers at his shoulder and Sirius moved into his line of vision and propped himself against the fireplace.

"I said I was sorry." He muttered at Sirius.

Sirius shook his head, "I think I may be the one who owes you an apology."

"You aren't the one with all the inappropriate feelings." Harry said bitterly as he dug his heels in and scuffed at the glitter.

Sirius took a deep breath, "Look at me."

Harry raised his head obediently, his eyes suspiciously shiny behind his glasses.

"Believe me you are not the only one with inappropriate feelings." Sirius told him vehemently. "In fact everything I seem to be able to think of ends up being inappropriate when it comes to you, so if somebody needs to be sorry then it's me."

A smile began to twitch at the corners of Harry's mouth, "How inappropriate are we talking here?"

Sirius took a few steps closer and then seemed to change his mind opting instead to go and poke a few fairies awake on the tree.

Harry craned his neck to look at Sirius; he was clearly trying to avoid the question.

"Sirius, quit hassling the fairies and answer the question, or if you won't do that at least come over here and kiss me."

Sirius went rigid with shock and Harry snapped back to face the fire, somewhat startled by his own daring.

As Harry bit his lower lip, wondering if he'd gone too far Sirius' arms snaked around his waist and pulled him back to rest against his chest. Harry took a deep intake of breath as Sirius rested his chin on his right shoulder.

"Is that what you really want?" Sirius asked shakily.

Harry didn't even need to think, he turned his head so he could look at Sirius, "Yes."

A moment later Sirius had his hand on Harry's jaw, tilting his head up and back so he could kiss him. There was no hesitation; they were kissing like lovers of old, their mouths clinging together; a perfect fit. Sirius slanted his mouth, deepened the kiss, swept his tongue across Harry's slightly parted lips but when he felt Harry's tongue scrape against his he had to resist the urge to send him crashing onto the floor under him.

Sirius hastily pulled himself up short. The last thing he needed to do was push Harry into something he wasn't ready for, least of all in the lounge where stray returning shoppers might walk in on them.

Harry looked up at him with wide eyes, cheeks rosily flushed with excitement, "Why'd you stop?" he questioned dizzily, as he leaned into Sirius more heavily than before and ran a teasing hand down the inside of Sirius' thigh.

"Um."

His mind was still trying to remember the reason they shouldn't do this in the lounge when Harry stretched up an arm to grab Sirius by the shoulder, pulling him closer still and tantalisingly nibbled and licked his way down the side of his throat before he gently sank his small perfect teeth into a fleshy part between his neck and shoulder.

With a small shudder of pleasure Sirius abruptly decided that being reasonable and logical wasn't working at all well and helplessly slid his hand under Harry's shirt, his fingers making teasing forays under the material.

To which Harry's response was to tug at his buttons, raise the material higher and mutter, "Off."

Sirius was only too happy to oblige. He took his time tracing the slender muscular lines of Harry's body before he eased the shirt from his shoulders and dropped it carelessly to one side.

Harry squirmed against him, trying to reach behind his back to unfasten Sirius' own shirt, his fumbling fingers brushing over Sirius' erection and making Sirius unconsciously jolt his hips forward, pressing himself closer to Harry.

"Harry, I think we should stop," said Sirius, gasping in air. He only got a moan in response. As much as he liked that, he reasoned that someone needed to remain in control. "Harry, I'm serious," he said trying not to shiver as Harry kissed his jaw. "If we don't stop you're going to find yourself very naked, very soon."   
  
That got Harry's attention. "Would it be so bad if we did go any further?"   
  
"No, with the way I am feeling I'd like nothing better," Sirius answered honestly, taking a deep breath. He rested his forehead on Harry's shoulder again. "But, this is not the time or the place, and I don't fancy being caught here with you." He tried to slip away from Harry's embrace, but he held him fast.   
  
"Please don't go just yet," he pleaded, "I like the feeling of you so near me."

"I'm not going anywhere. I just think we should slow down."

Then Sirius groaned, the pleasure Harry's lips were now giving was almost torturous, his mouth moving with a lazy sensuality against his collarbone in a way that had Sirius squirming.

"You don't play fair." He grumbled, smoothing a shaking hand across Harry's chest as he surrendered himself to Harry's caresses.

"Shirt off." Harry demanded hoarsely.

Sirius quickly complied and Harry rubbed his back against Sirius' chest, luxuriating in the feeling of skin meeting skin for the first time. Then Sirius caught his face in one of his large hands, lifted his chin, and kissed him until they were both dizzy and gasping for breath.

Harry stroked his hands over Sirius' muscular shoulders and arms, revelling in the beauty and strength of his body, as Sirius' lips teased at his own, with small biting kisses and flicks of his tongue.

Lost in their own world as they were; neither Harry or Sirius heard the front door open and slam shut again. They certainly didn't hear Remus and Tonks stop their conversation in pure shock as they glanced through the open door of the lounge and stared astonished at the sight before them.

"Well, I guess that settles that." Tonks said brightly; in reference to the discussion she and Remus had held just a little earlier that morning.

Remus nodded, "Indeed. We should probably also tell them not to do… whatever it is that they are doing in the lounge with the door open."

"Especially not when Molly will be back in a few minutes." Tonks added.

"What?"

"Didn't you hear her say?"

Remus didn't answer. He hammered his fist loudly on the still open door and watched Sirius topple over backwards in surprise, bringing Harry down on top of him.

Remus smirked slightly as two surprised faces regarded him with horror. "I thought you might like to know that you are in fact writhing in a spot visible from the doorway, and that Molly will be returning in a matter of minutes." Then he shut the door and left them to make whatever they would of that.

Sirius stared in shock at the now closed door, only vaguely aware that his mouth was hanging open in a very unbecoming manner. He glanced at Harry who was lying on his back in the glittering snow, an arm flung over his red face as he muttered unintelligibly to himself.

"I knew this was a bad idea." Sirius groaned, as he got to his feet and tried to brush tenaciously clinging glitter off his chest with one hand, as he retrieved his shirt with the other.

Harry bolted upright at this comment looking very distressed, "I, what, bad idea?"

"Not us generally." Sirius clarified hastily. "I meant us getting carried away in the lounge."

Harry relaxed again, for a brief moment he had thought his taste of heaven was going to be snatched away. He grabbed his own shirt and shrugged back into it. "I was worried for a moment there." He admitted with a smile. "But we should listen to Remus and get up to our bedrooms now while we have time."

"Harry, I'm not sure we should just rush into anything."

"Are you trying to say you don't want to be with me?" Harry questioned angrily.

"Quite the opposite." Sirius retorted. "I do want to be with you, we just don't have to go full-speed into bed. I'd feel that I was taking advantage of you if we did."

Harry grinned and stepped as close as he could without actually making contact. "Very noble Sirius, but what if I would actually quite like to be taken advantage of? Anyway, when did I say you were invited to my bedroom? I was only thinking that we should get out of here and cleaned up, and for that to happen we need to go to our rooms."

Sirius chuckled and loosely linked his arms around Harry to pull him against him. "You have me there."

Green eyes met grey and they both smiled rare smiles of unrestrained happiness. For once, something had actually gone right for them. Harry couldn't resist another kiss, and Sirius couldn't resist returning it before they headed for the door awkwardly fumbling to link hands for the first time.

But as they opened the lounge door there was a noisy babble of voices to be heard coming from outside the house. Before Sirius even had time to think about bolting for the stairs the front door handle turned and Harry jerked him back into the lounge. They shut the door and looked at each other in dismay.

They were trapped.

Sirius quickly stumbled across the room, dragging Harry with him, before diving behind the Christmas tree and squatting behind a heap of presents already planted in one of his artistic interior snowdrifts.

"I doubt they'll come in here, but if they do I don't think they'll see us back here." He whispered.

Harry nodded and peered between tree branches. "No, they have no reason to come in here."

Sirius wriggled a casual arm around his shoulders, prepared to make the most of any time with Harry and then froze as the door slowly opened.

"Famous last words." Harry muttered under his breath.

"I just don't know what those two boys think they are doing, disappearing off without cleaning up the kitchen like they were told." Molly said loudly, as she bustled into the room with a small armload of gaily wrapped parcels followed by Ron, Hermione and Ginny also loaded with gifts.

Sirius and Harry looked at each other aghast and began burrowing themselves deeper into the glitter in an attempt to avoid detection.

"I thought they might be fooling about in here, making an even bigger mess, but apparently not." Molly continued as she neatly arranged gifts at the foot of the tree.

Sirius snorted softly at that comment. Apparently not agreeing that his winter wonderland could be termed a mess.

All was well for Harry and Sirius until Molly directed Ron to place a few more parcels to the side of the tree. Ron shuffled through the snow with a large box in each hand, but when he caught sight of his best mate and his godfather half buried in a drift of fake snow his eyebrows shot up out of sight under his hair and he dropped both parcels.

"Ronald! Do be careful, some of these are breakable you know."

"Sorry mum," Ron mumbled automatically as he kept staring stupidly.

"Here, I'll do it." Hermione said bossily as she elbowed a goggle-eyed Ron aside.

Then she too stared. But possessed a greater presence of mind than Ron and bent down pretending to adjust the ribbons and tags on several gifts. "What are you doing?" She hissed at them, her eyes alight with curiosity.

"Hiding." Sirius offered in a matter of fact tone.

"I can see that, but why?"

Harry blushed and spoke up, "We were, um… here and um, heard you come in and um… well, you know."

Hermione looked puzzled. "Excuse me?"

 "We were kissing." Harry got out. "But I was just an innocent led astray by my wicked godfather!"  
  
"Oh!" Hermione briefly went as goggle-eyed as Ron had been a moment earlier, which provoked a snort of mirth from Sirius.  
  
Harry smiled slyly at Hermione.  
  
Hermione nodded and narrowed her eyes at Sirius, "I see. Kissing involves removing clothing now does it? Whatever did you think you were doing, rolling around half naked in that fake glittering snow?"

"I'm not making him do anything he doesn't want." Sirius defended himself warily, quite forgetting that Hermione couldn't possibly know what they had been doing.

"Did I say you were? I was referring to your shirt being inside out actually Sirius. Maybe we should protect you from Harry?"

She straightened up with a self-satisfied smile on her face as Molly and Ginny left the room.

Then as she walked towards Ron who anxiously hovered nearby she turned and raised her voice, "Oh and by the way, I don't quite understand your reasoning for lurking behind a tree half-buried in a glittery snow-drift. You could just as easily have been talking, or having a snowball fight as kissing in here." With that smart comment she turned, tucked her arm into Ron's and the two of them walked away.

"It pains me to admit that she is smarter than both of us." Sirius said mournfully.

Harry shrugged and crawled out from under the tree, "This isn't such a bad place to be though." He teased. "In fact you could stay just there and then I'll come along and unwrap you, it'll be the best Christmas present ever."

Sirius laughed appreciatively but clambered out too and set about returning his shirt to proper order.

Harry shuffled nervously, "So, um, we're together now then?"

Sirius laughed delightedly, slung an arm around Harry's shoulder and began steering him towards the door, "Well, actually I roll about on the floor of the lounge groping anyone available, it is a sort of tradition in this house. I'm booked solid all week. I might squeeze you in for another quick tumble some time in the New Year."

"Git."

"Well, I suppose that you are so cute I might just have to claim you exclusively for myself and break all my groping engagements over Christmastime."

"Thank you so much." Harry mocked as they began to ascend the stairs together.


	4. Chapter 4

It has been _forever_ since I last posted here. I suck, and I'm sorry. But at least I finally finished this fic.

Many thanks for **all **the reviews. I really appreciated them.

Oh, and in a moment of shameless self-advertising, I do have a greatestjournal account where all my Sirry stuff lives. (Follow my homepage link in my profile to my LJ, and then follow the link in the user info to my GJ.) There is a fic or two living there that hasn't been posted on this site.

Rachel my darling, thanks for all the love and encouragement, this is for you.

xx

"Are you sure I can't tempt you into showering with me?" Harry teased as they reached their bedroom doors without incident.

Sirius pulled a face, "Here I am trying to behave, and now here you are trying to corrupt me at every turn, I had no idea that you were such a practiced and utterly ruthless seducer."

Harry grinned as suavely as he could, reluctantly relinquished his hold on Sirius, and backed slowly towards his bedroom door. "I'm incorrigible I'm afraid, an utterly hopeless case. At least, I am when it comes to you."

"Just me, I hope." Sirius growled as he stalked after Harry and leaned in for another deep kiss.

"Just you." Harry confirmed breathlessly as let himself collapse limply back against the door. Sirius shot him a sinfully attractive grin before he disappeared into his bedroom with a wink, closing the door behind him.

Harry was just about to reel into his own bedroom with a silly smirk on his face when he spotted Hermione hurrying down the hallway towards him with a determined look on her face.

The temptation to pretend he hadn't seen her and to slam the door in her face was great, but he managed to restrain himself and turned his goofy grin on her.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" She breathed, without preamble.

Harry blinked dramatically, "Why yes actually, I'm standing in the doorway of my bedroom, having a decidedly odd moment with one of my best friends."

Hermione chose to ignore his sarcasm. "Don't you think things are going a little fast? It was only a few hours ago that you didn't even know Sirius was interested in you in that way, and now…"

Harry raised an amused eyebrow as she trailed off uncertainly, "And now what?"

"Well I don't think you two were taking items of clothing off in the lounge just for fun."

Harry leered. "But my dear Hermione. If you don't know how fun that can be I really must have words with Ron."

"Oh, you know what I mean!" Hermione exploded in frustration.

"I know."

"So?" She pushed.

Harry sighed heavily and turned away from her, "Please don't be my voice of reason just now Hermione."

The intense look on Hermione's face softened slightly, "I want you to be happy. I really hope Sirius will give you that happiness, but it all just seems to have happened very fast and I would hate for you to get hurt. I just think you might be better off thinking things through a bit before you two completely change your relationship forever."

"A bit late for that Hermione, we kissed, that changed things. Anyway, this is Sirius remember? He really cares about me."

"That doesn't mean he won't hurt you."

Harry spun back to face her and glared, "Sirius would _never_ hurt me."

"Not intentionally of course," Hermione rushed to clarify before Harry bit her head off, "but he might anyway, people do make mistakes even with people they love and really rushing into this new relationship before you have even laid any ground rules or talked things through might make things worse. Do you see my point?"

Harry was silent.

"I'm not trying to say don't love Sirius, or don't be with him, because I do think that you two would be right together. I'm just saying you are both hot-tempered passionate people who often feel rather than think, and sometimes you both tend to make rash decisions. Chances are, yes, it will all work out nicely and you'll both get what you want, but it wouldn't hurt to discuss what you actually do want from each other would it?

Harry frowned, "But we know what we want from each other. I love him and want him, and he feels the same."

"Does he really? Are you in love or just in lust? Do you want to get married someday? Does he? Do you want to live together when we finish school? What plans do you both have for the future? Might you want children in the future? This is the sort of thing you should try to establish before you get really serious."

Harry shook his head, "I don't know all the answers to that just yet, but what couple does start off knowing that stuff?"

Hermione shook her head, "You don't need all the answers on day one, but these are things you shouldn't be afraid to consider and ask about, preferably before you do anything that will _really_ irrevocably change things between you in a way that a few kisses couldn't. Because if what you really want is exclusivity, togetherness and a happily-ever-after someday, you should make sure that it is something Sirius could conceivably want as well before you hand yourself over to him body, mind and soul."

Harry smiled blissfully. "I've got the answer to that one. It's a good answer."

Hermione stared at him uncertainly, "Well that is good anyway," she said slowly, "but please at least try to gain a vague understanding of whether what Sirius wants meshes with what you want and don't just pounce on him the minute you see him again."

Harry finally ran out of patience with his well-meaning friend. He smiled at her affectionately, "Look, with everything terrible going on in the world at the moment I just want to be able to seize every moment I can to be happy, that isn't wrong is it?"

"No, but it doesn't mean you two should be instantly ripping your clothes off and doing… doing um… whatever it is you would do when you're both men."

Harry groaned and staggered away to let his head rest against his bathroom door with a loud thud. "Much the same as what you'd do even if you were straight, and Hermione, before you detonate your brain attempting to work out which bit goes where, I'm not necessarily thinking about going _all_ the way with Sirius right at this precise moment, or even in the very immediate future, maybe just something rather _more _than kissing."

Hermione was silent, but her flushed cheeks spoke volumes.

"I mean; you must know what I mean, because you and Ron must have…"

"Done nothing of the sort." Hermione interrupted quickly.

"Uh huh, well I don't want to know even if you have. That is between you and Ron, like this is between Sirius and me, so thanks for the concern, but even if I want to go across the hall right now to be buggered senseless by him, I think that would still be my choice."

Hermione's mouth formed a perfect 'o' and then she nodded slowly, her eyes impossibly wide, "Okay."

"Good." Harry said cheerfully, "Then you won't mind going to find Ron to do something that isn't more than kissing, while I shower and then go and find my lovable stray, who is badly in need of some down-and-dirty loving."

Hermione couldn't contain a rueful smile as Harry steered her gently but firmly towards the door, "You are absolutely awful. I think Sirius is rubbing off on you."

Harry grinned as lewdly as he was able, "Not yet, but maybe later."

"Harry!"

xx

Sirius was shampooing yet more glitter from his hair, while singing lustily at the top of his lungs and wriggling his hips in time to his tune when a blast of cooler air swept into the bathroom and made him shiver slightly. He couldn't restrain a smile though as he stopped mid note, "Oi! Shut the door you horny little devil. If you're planning to join me then just do it, don't lurk in the doorway."

There was a brief silence before Remus sniggered, "As flattered as I am to be deemed a horny little devil and to be invited to shower with you while you so charmingly butcher ABBA songs, I daresay Harry would have a few things to say about it. Not least of all your dreadful caterwauled version of Dancing Queen."

Sirius groaned and began hastily rinsing his hair, "I thought you were Harry you bloody berk. What I want to know is why you're trying to ambush me in the shower?"

"I am not ambushing you, I knocked and you didn't answer, and anyway, why on earth would Harry be joining you in the shower?"

"Because he is a horny seventeen year old, and I am his lucky boyfriend, hopefully the potential recipient of his horny teenaged behaviour."

Remus wrinkled his nose and backed out of the bathroom until he was only holding the door open the merest crack, "I don't think I want to know about anything you and Harry might get up to, although I was unfortunate enough to get treated to a visual earlier."

"Stop making a draft and just bug off!"

"I want to talk to you about Harry though."

Sirius heaved out a long suffering sigh and leaned our from behind the shower curtain to snag a towel, "I will be out in a moment, and then I'll give you five minutes in which to aggravate me, okay?"

"Fine." The door mercifully snapped shut and Sirius quickly towelled off, whistling tunelessly to himself.

Remus was perched on the edge of Sirius' bed staring blankly at his hands when Sirius re-emerged from the bathroom clad in just a loosely draped crimson towel around his lean hips.

Sirius bounded closer with a big grin on his face and abruptly waggled his fingers in right front of Remus' abstracted gaze. "Yoo hoo Moony, anyone at home? Your five minutes in which to pour cold water over my happiness, hopes and dreams begin now."

Remus blinked and glared at his friend. "Very amusing. I'm not trying to upset you, I'm just trying to ensure you aren't about to go off half-cocked or do anything mind-numbingly stupid with Harry."

Sirius grinned saucily and leaned back against the wall, "Well, I suppose I wouldn't be much use to Harry if I go off only half-cocked would I?"

Remus mentally cursed himself for giving Sirius such an ideal entry into flippancy, and tried another more serious tack. "Look, just listen up for a moment you big oaf. I like you both, and I'm concerned that you'll end up hurting each other. I'm simply saying, consider the implications of what you two are getting into before you do anything drastic to your relationship. Alright?"

Sirius nodded, "Concern duly noted my friend."

"But you aren't going to heed it at all are you?" Remus said with a wry smile as he got up to leave.

Sirius hesitated, and then offered Remus a slightly sad smile, "Look, if anyone gets hurt it will most likely be me, and I'm a big boy, I can deal with it. I've certainly dealt with worse."

"And how exactly did you figure that?"

"Harry is young, and I'm probably just his first big romance. I won't hurt him, I swear. In fact, I'll be sure I give him good memories of his first real love affair, even if it is with an old crock from the dark depths of Azkaban."

"And now you are being melodramatic," Remus said, a little relieved that Sirius wasn't as blasé as he seemed, "Did it occur to you that Harry is a very mature young man, and more than ready to enter into an adult relationship? That therefore, he might be as invested in this as you are?"

"Weren't you talking me out of this a moment ago?" Sirius asked in confusion.

Remus threw his arms up in exasperation, "I'm wasting my breath with this aren't I? I'm not saying don't, I'm just saying try to think with your brain as well as with your dick! Alright?"

Sirius smiled lopsidedly at his exasperated friend. "This is where I just shut up and nod isn't it?"

"If you would be so excessively kind, yes." Remus replied wryly, as he got up and headed for the door.

xx

Remus and Hermione collided in the hallway as they exited two separate bedrooms. They exchanged measuring glances and then shrugged their shoulders in identical expressions of resignation at the pig-headed stubbornness of their closest friends, and then strolled companionably down the hall together in search of lunch.

xx

Lunch was something of an ordeal for Sirius when he had finally got himself dressed, shaken off the kindly warnings from his well-meaning friend and dragged himself warily down the stairs.

Remus was watching him beadily, as if waiting for him to make a wrong move.

Ron looked hugely uncomfortable, presumably at the prospect of his best mate foolishly deciding to date an aging escaped convict who was unable to leave the house for fear of apprehension.

Tonks was inclined to smirk and wink indiscreetly from time to time.

Molly, Ginny, Bill, Fleur and Neville looked vaguely puzzled by the atmosphere in the kitchen, but Ginny was a sharp girl Sirius knew. He didn't doubt that she'd tumble to the reality of the situation quite rapidly; though he could only hope she would have the kindness not to immediately share the truth with her family.

Hermione was looking very earnestly interested in every word that issued from his mouth, so no doubt she was marking him down points on some sort of mental checklist to test how appropriate he was to date Harry. He found his usual conversational brilliance withering under this hard scrutiny, and then actually went as far as to temporarily lose all ability to string a sensible sentence together. Pointing excitedly at the platter of cold ham and making a strange 'Aarrrrr' sound did not make him look sane or suitable to be loved by Harry. But Harry smiled lovingly and passed him more ham anyway. But he could visualise Hermione mentally jotting notes: _'utterly imbecilic, unable to make suitable use of language'_

Sirius made a mental note of his own to keep his mouth firmly shut for a bit.

Then promptly squealed loudly and threw his fork up in the air.

"Was that more potatoes you wanted this time Sirius?" Remus asked with an innocent grin.

Sirius recovered himself and glared. "Salad actually. If you would be so kind as to pass the tomatoes?"

Remus did so with a wicked twinkle in his eye.

Sirius helped himself to the unwanted tomatoes and stole a glance at Harry, who was doubtless by now re-thinking his dating decisions. Sirius huffed. It was quite one thing to wish his godson would touch him like a lover, but quite another to have him wearing an angelic expression as he unexpectedly squeezed his upper thigh during lunch with the Weasley clan and a sadistic werewolf.

Then Harry smiled a little apologetically and squeezed again.

Sirius was proud that he didn't jump, but when the hand travelled higher it took all his concentration not to squeak pathetically. Harry was going to be the death of him.

After lunch was finished, and Ginny and Neville had begun clearing away Harry excused himself to go to his room with a meaningful look at Sirius.

Sirius ignored the knowing looks on the faces of Remus and Hermione and picked up his cue with almost indecent haste. He babbled out an excuse about he and Harry having a lot of catching up to do and dashed out of the kitchen dragging Harry in his wake.

Harry laughed all the way upstairs.

He stopped laughing when they arrived outside his bedroom door and he found himself crushed against the wall by Sirius. Between gasps they kissed, hands clutching at each other. Trying to get closer than could ever be possible, and grinding every inch of their flesh into each other.

"Bloody tease." Sirius mumbled once as he caught his breath. "Grabbing me like that over lunch."

"Who said I was just teasing?" Harry responded before nipping at Sirius' lower lip.

"The fact that there were many, many witnesses to prevent anything from happening said it for you." Sirius grumbled as he tried to get his lip to look sufficiently pouty for Harry to nip again.

Harry obliged, and simultaneously ran greedy hands over Sirius' back and arse, "Only prevented anything from happening just _then_ … so try to think of it as a taster for later."

Sirius smiled and pressed another kiss to Harry's mouth, "I think I like the sound of that."

"Good."

Then Sirius remembered Moony's lecture and back-peddled, "But I only want that if you want that of course, and I don't expect anything, and maybe we should slow down."

Harry pulled back as much as he could manage while being crushed against a wall by an enthusiastic Sirius and fixed his love with a considering look. "Did Hermione try to tell you I wasn't ready for this sort of thing?"

Sirius looked surprised.

"Remus then?"

"Umm."

Harry growled slightly, "We do what we like Sirius. Okay? If we want to kiss chastely and hold hands we do. If we want to make mad passionate love all night then we do. If we want anything in between then we do it. It is you and me in this relationship remember?"

"So to hell with interfering well-meaning friends?"

"Something like that," Harry agreed as he reached for Sirius again.

Their lips had just met when suddenly there was a small, sharp gasp from nearby.

Harry froze and then reluctantly disengaged from Sirius and turned his head to look at his audience.

Neville stood with his jaw hanging open and a look of supreme shock gracing his features.

Ginny was staring in a manner that looked almost… lustful?

"Argh! Not my day!" Sirius exclaimed in dismay as he realised he was completely caught. Again.

Harry grinned and tried not to let his embarrassment show, "What? You're snogging me and trying to imply it isn't a good day!"

Sirius mustered a smile at the poor joke and opened Harry's bedroom door, "So, um, we really need to stop doing this in public areas of the house don't you think Harry?"

Harry grinned evilly, "Yeah, sorry guys. Just got a little carried away for a public place. We're going into my bedroom now."

He pushed past Sirius and entered his room.

"Don't tell your mum?" Sirius begged a grinning Ginny before Harry deliberately gave him a lustful look, dramatically hauled him inside by his shirtfront and firmly closed the door.

"She won't." Harry said confidently as he tugged at Sirius' shirt buttons.

Sirius had vivid ideas about what Molly might do to him if he was discovered in a compromising situation with Harry, and was somewhat less comfortable about entrusting his safety to Neville and Ginny. So he pulled away for long enough to cast multiple locking spells on the door, and then turned back to an amused Harry who was now sitting on the edge of his bed and peeling off his socks.

"Um, Harry?"

Sirius wasn't sure if he was relieved or disappointed when Harry stretched out on his bed still wearing his jeans and grinned at Sirius. "You aren't going to come here and kiss me?"

Sirius promptly forgot to think any more and hastily obliged.

Harry and Sirius spent the next hour very pleasurably.

Kissing and touching and talking, in a way both had longed to for so many months.

They were wrapped so tightly in each other's arms, and Harry was starting to feel that maybe making love to Sirius didn't need to be something he waited to enjoy. So he deliberately began to push an unspoken boundary between them by tugging down the zipper on Sirius jeans. Sirius froze for a moment, and then continued to kiss him as before, before his own hands wandered down between their bodies and he began unbuckling Harry's belt.

They were both trying to wriggle their way out of the last of their restrictive clothing when someone hammered very loudly and very urgently upon Harry's door.

They both responded by cursing loudly, falling off the bed, and tripping over the tangled denim around their knees as they tried to stand up.

Sirius hastily undid his locking charms, smoothed his hair, righted his clothing and swung open the door.

Bill stood in the doorway. "Need to talk to you in the kitchen Sirius. Now." He ordered before turning away and hastening down the stairs.

Harry sighed heavily as he too made himself presentable again. "Just had to be something didn't there?" He groused.

"They never consult me." Sirius grumbled as he dragged himself away from Harry. "Why are they asking me stuff _now_?"

"Maybe it won't take too long." Harry said hopefully. "Come back up when you're done, yeah?"

Sirius nodded and stole a quick kiss before sprinting for the stairs.

Harry spent the next hour of the afternoon lying on his bed staring at the singularly uninteresting ceiling.

Apparently when the order did need Sirius, then they _really_ needed Sirius.

He then abstractedly flipped through some of his schoolbooks, but that only served to remind him of the physical age gap between himself and Sirius and the way most people would react to it.

In disgust he turned to his mirror and began examining himself. He wasn't entirely sure what Sirius saw in his too-lean body and permanently mussed hair, but he wasn't going to argue about finding himself on the receiving end of Sirius' affections.

Then he paced about and glared at the walls.

He could join his friends and play chess or do homework he supposed, but he didn't even want to expose himself to his friend's reactions to his new relationship with Sirius. No matter how understanding and supportive his friends were, they were going to treat him differently and look at him differently.

He'd already decided that he wanted to be every inch Sirius' lover before he spent any more quality time with his friends.

At least that way nobody would be able to irritatingly suggest caution or taking it slow.

Besides, he wanted to be Sirius' lover.

xx

It was twilight and Harry was half-dozing, half-brooding on his bed when the door finally swung open again.

To his disappointment it was only Hermione framed in the doorway.

She carried a tray of food though, and Ron was hovering uncertainly behind her.

Harry mustered a smile for them both and zeroed in on the food tray.

He had missed dinner he realised, but as there was apparently still a meeting going on in the kitchen, then he supposed that _everyone_ had technically missed dinner.

"Thought you might be hungry too mate." Ron told him as Hermione put the tray down.

Harry grinned at his friends, they were apparently not here to lecture after all. "Yeah, I could eat." He told them happily as he lunged for the largest sandwich in the heap.

It was like old times for the three of them, as they munched their way through the picnic-like tray of food. Harry's changing relationship with Sirius wasn't mentioned once, and the awkward moments were few and far between - much to his relief.

It was a few minutes before midnight that Hermione finally decided that it really was time for bed.

Sirius had still not returned, much to Harry's disappointment.

"Night mate," Ron mumbled as he stumbled out of Harry's room still clutching a pork pie and bottle of butterbeer.

"Yeah. Night Ron."

Hermione leaned in close and with a nervous giggle whispered, "Go for it."

"Huh?"

"You and Sirius. I was wrong Harry. If you really won't regret it in the morning, then do it."

"Are you drunk Hermione?"

Hermione glared and then shook back her hair and attempted to look coolly dignified. Harry was only reminded of Hedwig smoothing ruffled feathers and had to stifle a smirk.

"Of course not! I was just thinking, that you really do know Sirius well, and you are sure of things, so then maybe you really shouldn't hesitate."

"Because Voldie could kill me next week?" Harry finished gloomily.

Hermione looked infuriated. "Of course not!" She screeched, causing Ron to look around and wander back towards the conversation.

"Because maybe you shouldn't ignore love." Hermione whispered crossly as Ron lumbered up to them.

"I thought we were going to bed." Ron mumbled as he stuffed the last bite of pie into his mouth.

"We are." Hermione told him.

"Together." Harry said, unable to resist.

"Yes." Hermione said firmly.

Ron choked on pie and then just looked scared.

Harry laughed evilly and simply shut his door on them.

Then he made his decision.

In the time it took for Ron and Hermione to sort out their sleeping arrangements and disappear, Harry had grabbed clothes and a toothbrush, and was sneaking across the hall to Sirius' room.

A few minutes later, and his toothbrush was leaning companionably against Sirius' and he was comfortably curled up in soft sheets that smelled like his would-be lover.

xx

The meeting was boring.

The order was merely interested in Sirius' opinions on the transfiguration of important magical objects that had been taken during the gathering of some sort of intelligence. Sirius really couldn't see the significance.

Sirius also wanted to scream, because really, even though Remus had never been quite as proficient at transfiguration as he had been, he could still have handled the questions being put to Sirius all afternoon, when he could have been very comfortably snuggled up with Harry.

It was almost one in the morning too, Sirius noted with disgust.

Harry wouldn't still be awake, and even if he was, the chances were that he wouldn't be in the mood for being woken up by a horn dog.

Sirius resignedly slouched through his own bedroom door and stopped in wonder at seeing Harry there so unexpectedly in his bed, innocently dozing, his mouth partly open, one arm carelessly draped above his head, his bared legs splayed. He had apparently removed all his clothing and was loosely draped with just a corner of the sheet.

He felt a flash of excitement rush through him almost instantly, raising the pace of his heartbeat. He didn't realize that his breathing had momentarily stopped.

His eyes were riveted to Harry's body, his beauty. He knew he should look away, gain some control, and maybe even leave the room. But he couldn't. He had never seen such a beautiful expanse of glossy pale golden skin. It would all be ever so soft to the touch, he knew. Harry looked so vulnerable and sweet lying there; yet at the same time so sensually delectable, and an irresistible temptation either way.

Sirius softly crossed the room and sat gingerly on the bed beside Harry and found himself gazing stupidly at his lips, which were slightly parted. Harry's mouth was small, but sensuous, and soft he knew. His breaths were quiet and even, barely audible even in the hush of the room. His black hair was mussed on the pillow in a tumble of spikes and awkward tufts.

Sirius stretched out a tentative hand and then paused an inch short of stroking his fingers over Harry's jaw.

His fingers hovered, and he hesitated. To judge by Harry's lack of clothing, he wasn't anticipating an innocent night.

But did that mean he should give Harry what he wanted?

Just then Harry's long lashes fluttered against his flushed cheeks and he opened his eyes, blinking at him. A gasp escaped him, a quick intake of breath before he instinctively drew back in startled reflex, eyes large in his face, full of shock, or did he, too, feel that sudden spark of passion so intense that it scared him? Sirius let his hand fall away from Harry's face.

Then Harry smiled. "Hey," he rasped in a sleep heavy voice. "I hope you don't mind, but I really wanted to be with you tonight."

Sirius blinked dazedly. "Uh, do I mind finding a gorgeous naked you in my bed?"

Harry nodded. He now wore a confident smile and his eyebrow was quirked inquiringly.

Sirius hastily stripped off his shirt and kicked off his shoes, "I'm going to brush my teeth and then I'll be right in beside you." He slid in socked feet across the polished wood floor, and then collided noisily with the bath in his haste to make himself ready to get into bed with Harry.

A low laugh followed his clumsy exit.

Sirius peered out of the doorway already brushing his teeth to shake a fist at an amused Harry.

"Now you just look rabid dear." Harry told him as he arranged himself comfortably against the pillows.

Sirius hopped in front of the bathroom mirror, and realised he'd squeezed out too much toothpaste in his excitement and now had white foam frothing down his chin.

Real smooth.

He good-naturedly came to the doorway and shook a fist again before peeling off his socks and hurling both in Harry's general direction. Then he vanished back into the bathroom to wash away the foam.

He then stared into the mirror, suddenly unaccountably nervous. He'd done this before, whatever 'this' would be. Admittedly it was a _very_ long time since he'd last been involved with anyone, but you didn't forget how to ride a broom!

And if he didn't get moving pronto then Harry would probably just nod off again.

Harry was looking anything but sleepy, and the slow smile he shot at Sirius was enough to jellify his knees.

"Are you sure about this?" Sirius questioned as he moved slowly to the bed.

By way of invitation Harry pulled back the corner of the bedcovers, revealing naked hip and thigh in the process.

Sirius promptly sat down on the bared patch of bed and leaned in briefly for a soft kiss. "I guess I'll undress then." He said uncertainly.

"Well you can climb in still wearing jeans if you really must, but I'm more interested in touching the skin underneath, so I'd only tear them off." Harry told him outrageously. "So I'd advise undressing."

Sirius grinned appreciatively and stood up briefly to shimmy out of his jeans before sitting down again and quickly tucking himself in.

Harry was in his arms kissing him before he had time to draw another breath.

"I don't deserve this." Sirius said wonderingly as Harry gently pulled him down on top of him.

"Shh," Harry responded. "Life isn't about what you deserve Sirius. It's about living and making the most of every good moment."

"When did you get so smart?" Sirius asked half seriously.

"When you got so dumb." Harry fired back with an affectionate smile. "Now shut up and kiss me."

Sirius wasn't foolish enough to argue and quickly obeyed the request.

When he lifted his head again Harry's eyes were still closed, his lips trembling, his face flushed.

"So beautiful," Sirius muttered. "Merlin, I want to make love to you so badly."

When Harry's eyes flashed open, wide-eyed and shocked again, he realized he'd spoken out loud. Unsure, he waited, watched.

Harry's eyes blinked closed again, his mouth parted and his breath became quicker, more ragged. Then his words whispered across Sirius' lips as he nuzzled closer again. "Please. I want you Sirius."

Just four words, yet with such a wealth of trust, hope, love and desire in them that it shook Sirius and he kissed him reverently until Harry deepened the kiss, and with a slow, teasing grind of his hips fully returned Sirius' mind to making love to him immediately.

With a muted groan, he covered Harry's mouth with his, urgently, hungrily, his tongue invading Harry's sweet mouth. Hot, wet, sweet. He couldn't get enough of the taste of Harry. He couldn't bear to stop kissing him, and his arms held him captive, his hands roaming over his body, taking possession of every part he could reach. "Mine." He managed to gasp between kisses.

Harry made a happy murmur of pleasure, and his hands crept up Sirius' broad, muscular shoulders, curved lovingly round his neck and twined softly into his hair. "Yours." He agreed as he peppered soft kisses across Sirius' jaw and neck.

For a brief moment their eyes met, silently questioning, and then Sirius was pressing kiss after kiss to Harry's chest, but skimming teasingly past his nipples, making him wait a little longer, rubbing them gently with roughened fingertips, finding out just how hard they can get before swiping his tongue over them. Harry whimpered and twined his fingers into Sirius' thick dark hair, and arched his chest helplessly towards Sirius' lips, his breathing quickening with every touch.

Sirius shifted lower, his tongue travelling on down Harry's chest, pausing to dip his tongue into his navel. Sirius couldn't stifle a smile as Harry bucked involuntarily against him, and pressed himself against him in return, groaning as Harry gently rubbed their bodies together. Then he lifted his body from Harry's and continued to trail his lips lower still, but cheekily bypassing the place Harry wanted his mouth most. Teasingly he ran his tongue up the soft skin of the inside of his thighs, making Harry shamelessly open his legs wide as Sirius lapped the sensitive skin there, swirled his tongue across twitching thigh muscles and gently grazed hot skin with his teeth.

Then Harry was reduced to whimpers for quite a few minutes.

"I need to touch you." He gasped suddenly, "I want us to make love together, not have you make love to me. However damn good it feels."

Sirius was quick to scramble back up Harry's body, and their mouths met urgently and tongues duelled as they thrust shallowly against each other.

"You want me, like this?" Sirius questioned urgently, as he reached to touch Harry in a way that made him only moan and squirm in response.

"Do you?"

A weak nod and a fierce kiss answered him - apparently Harry was too far-gone for words.

For the next hour nothing and no-body else existed for Harry and Sirius. They were too lost in the pleasure of each other.

Eventually Sirius collapsed on top of Harry. His shaking arms refused to hold his weight anymore, but luckily Harry had wrapped his arms tightly around Sirius and seemed to have no intention of letting him go anywhere.

"I can't remember ever feeling this good before." Sirius sighed happily.

"Good. Me either." Harry said sounding extraordinarily contented.

Finally Sirius found the energy to slide off Harry, grinning as Harry made a growling noise at the loss before almost purring as Sirius gathered him into his arms and they lay together in a sweaty, sticky tangle of limbs.

Harry sighed with contentment as he lay with his cheek pressed to Sirius' bare chest, listening to the steady thud of his heartbeat, then buried his face in his neck and cuddled against him with a little murmur of happiness.

"I love you." Sirius said suddenly.

"Love you to-." Harry mumbled sleepily, his declaration cut off by a yawn.

Sirius laughed softly, and settled down to sleep too. It had been an exhausting day.

Within minutes they were fast asleep, safely held in each other's arms.

xx

FIN


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